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Exodus 17

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1 And all the assembly of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, according to their journeys, at the command of Jehovah; and they encamped in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink.

2 And the people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink! And Moses said to them, Why do ye dispute with me? Why do ye tempt Jehovah?

3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why is it that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?

4 And Moses cried to Jehovah, saying, What shall I do with this people? Yet a little, and they will stone me!

5 And Jehovah said to Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy staff with which thou didst smite the river, take in thy hand, and Go.

6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock on Horeb; and thou shalt strike the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.

7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they had tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us, or not?

8 And Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

9 And Moses said to Joshua, Choose us men, and go out, fight with Amalek; to-morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.

10 And Joshua did as Moses had said to him, to fight with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

11 And it came to pass when Moses raised his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

12 And Moses' hands were heavy; then they took a stone, and put [it] under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on this side, and one on that side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

13 And Joshua broke the power of Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

14 And Jehovah said to Moses, Write this [for] a memorial in the book, and rehearse [it] in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.

15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi.

16 And he said, For the hand is on the throne of Jah; Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation!

   

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Arcana Coelestia #3424

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3424. 'Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of living water' means the Word as regards the literal sense, which holds the internal sense within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'digging in the valley' as investigating lower down to discover where truths are, for 'digging' is investigating, and 'a valley' is that which is lower down, 1723, 3417; and from the meaning of 'a well of living water' as the Word in which Divine truths are present, thus the Word as regards the literal sense which holds the internal sense within it. It is well known that the Word is called 'a spring', in particular 'a spring of living waters'. The reason why the Word is also called 'a well' is that in relation to its other senses the sense of the letter is like a well, and that where spiritual people are concerned the Word is not a spring but a well, see 2702, 3096. Since a valley is that which is lower down, or what amounts to the same, that which is more external, and it was in the valley that the spring was found; and since the literal sense is the lower or more external sense of the Word, it is the literal sense that is therefore meant. But because that sense holds the internal sense, that is, the heavenly and Divine sense, its waters are for that reason called 'living', as also were the waters which went out under the threshold of the new house in Ezekiel,

And it will happen, that every wild creature that creeps, wherever the river comes to, is living; and there will be very many fish, for those waters go there, and become fresh; and everything is living where the river goes. Ezekiel 47:8-9.

Here 'the river' is the Word, 'the waters which cause everything to live' are the Divine Truths within it, 'fish' are facts, 40, 991.

[2] The Lord teaches that the Word of the Lord is such that it gives life to him who is thirsty, that is, to one who desires life, and that it is a spring whose waters are living, in John,

Jesus said to the woman from Samaria at Jacob's well, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give Me a drink, you would ask from Him, and He would give you living water. He who drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life. John 4:10, 14.

The reason why the Word is living and therefore confers life is that in its highest sense the subject is the Lord, while in the inmost sense it is His kingdom in which the Lord is everything. And this being so it is life itself which the Word contains and which flows into the minds of those who read the Word devoutly. This is why the Lord, in regard to the Word which comes from Himself, calls Himself 'a spring of water welling up into eternal life'; see also 2702.

[3] The fact that the Word of the Lord is called 'a well' in addition to 'a spring' is clear in Moses,

Israel sang the song: Spring up, O well! Answer to it! The well which the princes dug, which the chiefs of the people dug out, as directed by the Lawgiver, 1 with their staves. Numbers 21:17-18.

These words were sung at the place Beer, that is, the place of the well. In this case 'a well' means the Word which existed with the Ancient Church, as is evident from what has been said previously about the Word in 2897. 'The princes' means the first and foremost truths of which [the Word] consists - 'princes' being first and foremost truths, see 1482, 2089 - 'nobles of the people' lower truths such as those present in the literal sense, 1259, 1260, 2928, 3295. 'The Lawgiver' is clearly the Lord, 'staves' the powers which those truths possessed.

Notes de bas de page:

1. literally, into the Lawgiver

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.