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Exodus 15

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1 Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to Yahweh, and said, "I will sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

2 Yah is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him; my father's God, and I will exalt him.

3 Yahweh is a man of war. Yahweh is his name.

4 He has cast Pharaoh's chariots and his army into the sea. His chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea.

5 The deeps cover them. They went down into the depths like a stone.

6 Your right hand, Yahweh, is glorious in power. Your right hand, Yahweh, dashes the enemy in pieces.

7 In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send forth your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.

8 With the blast of your nostrils, the waters were piled up. The floods stood upright as a heap. The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.

9 The enemy said, 'I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.'

10 You blew with your wind. The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

11 Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

12 You stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them.

13 "You, in your loving kindness, have led the people that you have redeemed. You have guided them in your strength to your holy habitation.

14 The peoples have heard. They tremble. Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia.

15 Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed. Trembling takes hold of the mighty men of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away.

16 Terror and dread falls on them. By the greatness of your arm they are as still as a stone-- until your people pass over, Yahweh, until the people pass over who you have purchased.

17 You shall bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, the place, Yahweh, which you have made for yourself to dwell in; the sanctuary, Lord, which your hands have established.

18 Yahweh shall reign forever and ever."

19 For the horses of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and Yahweh brought back the waters of the sea on them; but the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of the sea.

20 Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dances.

21 Miriam answered them, "Sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea."

22 Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.

23 When they came to Marah, they couldn't drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah.

24 The people murmured against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"

25 Then he cried to Yahweh. Yahweh showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there he tested them;

26 and he said, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you."

27 They came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water, and seventy palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #8351

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8351. 'And the people grumbled against Moses' means grief caused by the bitterness of the temptation. This is clear from the meaning of 'grumbling' as complaint, the kind made in temptations, thus grief caused by the bitterness of the temptation. The temptations which those belonging to the Lord's spiritual Church underwent after they had been delivered from molestations, in addition to the temptations which members of that Church are destined to undergo, are described by the grumblings of the children of Israel in the wilderness. And since spiritual temptations are as a general rule protracted till a person is in despair, 1787, 2694, 5279, 5280, 7147, 7166, 8165, 'grumbling' means complaint because of grief felt in temptations, as in Exodus 16:2-3; 17:3; Numbers 14:27, 29, 36; 16:11. The words 'against Moses' are used because it was a grumbling against what was Divine; for 'Moses' represents Divine Truth, 6723, 6752, 6771, 6827, 7010, 7014, 7089, 7382.

[2] As regards the temptations which those belonging to the spiritual Church underwent, and the temptations which members of that Church are destined to undergo, it should be recognized that no faith, nor thus any charity, can ever be instilled into those who belong to the spiritual Church except by means of temptations. In temptations a person is involved in conflict against falsity and evil. These - falsity and evil - flow into the external man from the hells, while goodness and truth flow in from the Lord by way of the internal man; and so there arises from a conflict of the internal man with the external that which is called temptation. And in the measure that the external man is brought into a state of obedience to the internal, faith and charity are instilled; for the external or natural level of a person is a receptacle of truth and good from the internal. If the receptacle is not properly adjusted it does not receive anything flowing in from the more internal level but either repels, destroys, or stifles it, as a consequence of which there is no regeneration. So it is that temptation is necessary, in order that a person may undergo regeneration, which is effected through the instillation of faith and charity, and thereby through the formation of a new will and new understanding. This also explains why the term 'militant' is applied to the Lord's Church. See what has been stated and shown already about these matters in 3928, 4249, 4341, 4572, 5356, 6574, 6611, 6657, 7090 (end), 7122, 8159, 8168, 8179, 8273.

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

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Arcana Coelestia #4249

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4249. 'And Jacob was exceedingly afraid, and was distressed' means the state when it is being changed. This is clear from the fact that fear and distress are the first stage in temptations, and that they are precursors to the turning round or the change taking place within a state. The arcana which lie deeper still within these details - that is to say, Esau's coming to meet Jacob with four hundred men, and Jacob's consequent fear and distress - cannot be explained easily and intelligibly since they are rather more internal ones. Let just this one be brought forward here. When good takes up the first position and subordinates truths to itself, as happens when a person undergoes spiritual temptations, the good which flows in from the interior is accompanied by very many truths which have been stored away in the person's interior man. Those truths cannot come into focus and be seen by him until good is playing the leading role, for when this happens the natural starts to receive light from good, and it is apparent to him which things in the natural agree and which ones do not. And this is what gives rise to the fear and distress that are the precursors to spiritual temptation. For spiritual temptation acts upon the conscience, which is an attribute of the interior man, and therefore when entering such temptation a person does not know the origin of his fear and distress. But the angels present with him know it full well. Indeed temptation has its origin in angels' maintenance of the person in goods and truths, while evil spirits maintain him in evils and falsities.

[2] The things that occur among the spirits and angels present with a person are perceived by him purely as things going on within himself. For while he lives in the body and does not believe that everything within him flows in from somewhere other than himself, he imagines that the causes of the things that go on within him do not lie outside himself but that all causes lie within him and are his own - which is not in fact the case. For whatever a person thinks and what he wills, that is, all his thought and all his affection, originate either in hell or in heaven. When he thinks and wills anything evil and as a consequence takes delight in falsities, let him realize that his thoughts and affections originate in hell; but when he thinks and wills anything good and as a consequence takes delight in truths, let him realize that these originate in heaven, that is, in the Lord by way of heaven. But the person's thoughts and affections more often than not take on a different outward appearance. A conflict between evil spirits and angels, for example, arising from the things in one who is to be regenerated, takes on the different outward appearance of fear and distress, and of temptation.

[3] These matters are bound to seem paradoxes to man, for almost every member of the Church at the present day believes that all the truth he thinks, and the good he wills and does, originate in himself, even though he says something other than that when speaking from doctrine taught by faith. Indeed his nature is such that if anyone told him that spirits from hell exist who flow into his thought and will when he thinks and wills anything evil, and angels from heaven when he thinks and wills anything good, he would be dumbfounded at anyone putting forward such an idea, for he would say that he can feel the life within himself and that he thinks from himself and wills from himself. His belief is based on that feeling and not on what doctrine teaches. Yet that doctrine is true and such feeling deceptive. This I have been allowed to know from almost uninterrupted experience lasting several years now, and to know it in such a way as to leave me in no doubt whatsoever.

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