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Genesis 22

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1 Now after these things, God put Abraham to the test, and said to him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I.

2 And he said to him, Take your son, your dearly loved only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and give him as a burned offering on one of the mountains of which I will give you knowledge.

3 And Abraham got up early in the morning, and made ready his ass, and took with him two of his young men and Isaac, his son, and after the wood for the burned offering had been cut, he went on his way to the place of which God had given him word.

4 And on the third day, Abraham, lifting up his eyes, saw the place a long way off.

5 Then he said to his young men, Keep here with the ass; and I and the boy will go on and give worship and come back again to you.

6 And Abraham put the wood for the burned offering on his son's back, and he himself took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them went on together.

7 Then Isaac said to Abraham, My father; and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, We have wood and fire here, but where is the lamb for the burned offering?

8 And Abraham said, God himself will give the lamb for the burned offering: so they went on together.

9 And they came to the place of which God had given him knowledge; and there Abraham made the altar and put the wood in place on it, and having made tight the bands round Isaac his son, he put him on the wood on the altar.

10 And stretching out his hand, Abraham took the knife to put his son to death.

11 But the voice of the angel of the Lord came from heaven, saying, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Let not your hand be stretched out against the boy to do anything to him; for now I am certain that the fear of God is in your heart, because you have not kept back your son, your only son, from me.

13 And lifting up his eyes, Abraham saw a sheep fixed by its horns in the brushwood: and Abraham took the sheep and made a burned offering of it in place of his son.

14 And Abraham gave that place the name Yahweh-yireh: as it is said to this day, In the mountain the Lord is seen.

15 And the voice of the angel of the Lord came to Abraham a second time from heaven,

16 Saying, I have taken an oath by my name, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not kept back from me your dearly loved only son,

17 That I will certainly give you my blessing, and your seed will be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand by the seaside; your seed will take the land of those who are against them;

18 And your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, because you have done what I gave you orders to do.

19 Then Abraham went back to his young men and they went together to Beer-sheba, the place where Abraham was living.

20 After these things, Abraham had news that Milcah, the wife of his brother Nahor, had given birth to children;

21 Uz the oldest, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel, the father of Aram,

22 And Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.

23 Bethuel was the father of Rebekah: these eight were the children of Milcah and Nahor, Abraham's brother.

24 And his servant Reumah gave birth to Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah.

   

Dalle opere di Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #2772

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2772. He said, Take I pray thy son. That this signifies the Divine rational begotten by Him, is evident from the signification of a “son,” as being the rational (see n. 2623); here the Divine rational, because by the son is meant Isaac; and that he represents the Lord’s Divine rational has been shown above (n. 1893, 2066, 2083, 2630). And as the Lord made His rational Divine by His own power, as has been often said, by “thy son” is also signified that it was begotten by Him (see n. 1893, 2093, 2625).

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

Dalle opere di Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #2625

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2625. At the appointed time. That this signifies when the rational was such as to receive, is evident from the signification of “time.” There are two things which while man lives in the world appear to be essential, because they are proper to nature, namely, space and time. Hence to live in space and time is to live in the world or in nature. But in the other life these two things are of no consequence. In the world of spirits indeed they do appear to be of some consequence, for the reason that spirits fresh from the body still retain the idea of natural things; yet it is not long before they perceive that there is no space and time there, but state instead; and that in the other life states correspond to spaces and times in nature; to spaces states as to Being [esse], and to times states as to Coming forth [existere]. (In regard to space or place see above, n. 1274, 1379, 1380, 1382)

[2] From this anyone can see what kind of an idea a man may have, while in the world or in nature, respecting the things of the other life and many arcana of faith; namely, that he is not willing to believe them until he apprehends them by means of the things in the world, nay, by sensuous things; for he must needs suppose that if he were to put off the idea of space and time, and still more space and time themselves, he would become absolutely nothing; and thus that he would have nothing left from which he could feel and think, except something confused and incomprehensible; when yet the case is exactly the reverse. Angelic life is of such a nature as to be the wisest and happiest of all.

[3] This is the reason why in the Word “ages” in the internal sense do not signify ages, but states; so that in this verse “old age” does not mean old age. And in the same way the numbers do not signify numbers, but some specific state, as for instance the number a hundred years, concerning which hereafter. From this we can now see that by the “appointed time” is signified the state when the rational was such as to receive.

[4] In regard to the specific matter here treated of, namely, that the Divine rational was and came forth from the unition of the Divine spiritual with the Divine celestial of the Lord, when the days were fulfilled for the human to be put off, and when the rational was such as to receive (all of which is signified in the internal sense by Sarah’s conceiving and bearing to Abraham a son to his old age at the appointed time), be it known that the human begins in the inmost of the rational (see n. 2106, 2194); and that the Lord advanced successively to the union of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, and of the Divine Essence with the Human Essence (n. 1864, 2033, 2523); and this by His own power (n. 1921, 2025, 2026, 2083), by continual temptations and victories (n. 1737, 1813, 1690), and by continual revelations from His Divine (n. 1616, 2500); and this until at length He had expelled all the maternal human (n. 1414, 1444, 2574); and thus had made His Human Divine in respect to the rational, according to the things contained in this verse. Hence it is manifest what is to be understood by the days being fulfilled for the human to be put off, and by the rational being such as to receive.

[5] Some idea of this may be formed from what takes place in those who are being regenerated. The celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are not at once implanted in them by the Lord, but successively; and when by means of them the man’s rational has become such that it can receive, then for the first time is he becoming regenerate, for the most part by means of temptations in which he conquers. When these things take place, the days are fulfilled for him to put off the old man, and to put on the new. (Concerning man’s regeneration, see above, n. 677, 679, 711, 848, 986, 1555, 2475)

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