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Hemelse Verborgenheden in Genesis en Exodus #1

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1. Dat het Woord van het Oude Testament verborgenheden van de hemel bevat, en dat zowel het geheel als elke bijzonderheid daarvan op de Heer betrekking heeft, op Zijn hemel, op de Kerk, op het geloof en de dingen van het geloof, kan geen sterveling uit de letter opmaken. Uit de letter of uit de letterlijke zin ziet niemand iets anders, dan dat het in het algemeen gaat over de uiterlijke dingen van de Joodse Kerk, terwijl er overal een innerlijke zin is, dat nergens in het uiterlijke aan het licht komt, behalve dan het zeer weinige dat de Heer onthuld heeft en aan de apostelen heeft ontvouwd; zo bijvoorbeeld, dat de offeranden de Heer betekenen, het land Kanaän en Jeruzalem en ook het Paradijs, de hemel betekenen, waarom dan ook van het hemelse Kanaän en Jeruzalem gesproken wordt.

  
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Nederlandse vertaling door Henk Weevers. Digitale publicatie Swedenborg Boekhuis, van 2012 t/m 2021 op www.swedenborg.nl

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The White Horse #11

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11. In the internal or spiritual sense of the Word innumerable things are hidden.

The Word in its internal sense contains many things which surpass human comprehension: 3085-3086. They cannot be expressed in words, and cannot be explained: 1955. They exist solely for the angels, and are understood by them: 167. The internal sense of the Word contains the hidden things of heaven, which have to do with the Lord and His kingdom in heaven and on earth: 1-4, 937. Those hidden things do not appear in the literal sense: 937, 1502, 2161. Many other things in the writings of the prophets, which appear as if randomly scattered, in the internal sense fit together continuously in a beautiful 1 sequence: 7153, 9022. In its original language not a single word, not even a single jot, can be missing from the literal meaning without interruption of the internal sense; and for that very reason the Word, out of the Lord's divine providence, has been preserved so completely, down to the last tittle: 7933. There are innumerable things in each individual part of the Word: 6617, 6620, 8920. And in each and every phrase: 1869. Countless things are contained in the Lord's Prayer and in its individual petitions: 6619. And in the Ten Commandments; though in the external sense of these there are some ideas which are known to every nation without revelation: 8862, 8899. In every tiny little tittle of a letter of the Word in its original language there is something holy, revealed from Heaven, this may be seen in the work Heaven and Hell 260, where the words of the Lord are explained, that Not one jot or tittle shall be lost from the Law; Matthew 5:18.

Particularly in the prophetical part of the Word there are two expressions of the same thing, as it were, but one refers to what is good and the other to what is true: 683, 707, 2576, 8339. In the Word things relating to what is good and what is true are married together, to an amazing degree, but that marriage is evident only to one who is acquainted with the internal sense: 10554. So, in the Word and in its individual parts there are divine marriage and heavenly marriage: 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712, 5138, 7022. Divine marriage, which is the marriage between divine good and divine truth, is thus the Lord in heaven, in whom alone that marriage exists there: 3004-3005, 3009, 4137, 5194, 5502, 6343, 7945, 8339, 9263, 9314. Through Jesus also there is signified divine good, and through Christ divine truth, and thus through both divine marriage in heaven is signified: 3004-3005, 3009. This marriage-and thus the Lord as regards divine good and divine truth-is in each individual part of the Word in its internal sense: 5502. The marriage of good and truth by the Lord in heaven and in the Church is what is called heavenly marriage: 2508, 2618, 2803, 3004, 3211, 3952, 6179. Thus in this respect the Word is heaven, so to speak: 2173, 10126. Heaven is likened to marriage in the Word from the marriage of good and truth there: 2758, 3132, 4434, 4835. The internal sense is itself the genuine doctrine of the Church: 9025, 9430, 10400. Those who understand the Word according to its internal sense know the true doctrine itself of the Church, because the internal sense contains that: 9025, 9430, 10400. The internal part of the Word is also the internal part of the Church, and so also of worship: 10460. The Word is the doctrine of love towards the Lord, and affectionate regard for your neighbour: 3419-3420.

The Word in its literal meaning is like a cloud, and its glory is in its internal sense-Preface to Genesis 18; also 5922, 6343-where there is explained that the Lord will come in the clouds of the sky with glory. Also 'cloud' in the Word signifies the Word in its literal sense, and 'glory' signifies the Word in its internal sense-Preface to Genesis 18: also 4060, 4391, 5922, 6343, 6752, 8106, 8781, 9430, 10551, 10574. Things which are in the literal sense, compared to those in the internal sense, are like rough projections round a polished optical cylinder, from which nevertheless there exists in the cylinder a beautiful image of a man: 1871. Those who wish for and recognize only the literal sense are represented in the spiritual world as an ugly little old woman, while those who wish for and recognize at the same time the internal sense appear as a virgin finely clothed: 1774. The Word in all that it embraces is an image of heaven, because the Word is divine truth, and divine truth constitutes heaven, and heaven resembles one human, and in that respect The Word is an image of a human, as it were: 1871. That heaven in its total make-up resembles one human may be seen in the work Heaven and Hell 59-67. That divine truth proceeding from the Lord constitutes heaven, 126-140, 200-212. The Word is presented to the Angels in a beautiful and delightful way: 1767-1768. The literal sense is like a body, and the internal sense is like the soul of that body: 8943.

Consequently, life for the Word comes from its internal sense: 1405, 4857. The Word is pure in its internal sense, and it does not appear so in its literal sense: 2362, 2395. Things in the literal sense become holy from internal things: 10126, 10276. In the historical narratives of the Word also there is an internal sense, but within them: 4989. Thus the historical parts just as much as the prophetical parts contain hidden things of heaven: 755, 1659, 1709, 2310, 2333. The angels perceive these not in relation to history but in relation to doctrine, because they perceive them spiritually: 6884. The innermost hidden things in the historical narratives are less evident to humans than those in the prophetical parts for the simple reason that their minds are intent upon, and in contemplation of, the historical parts: 2176, 6597.

Moreover, the nature of the internal sense of the Word is shown: 1756, 1984, 2004, 2663, 3035, 7089, 10604, 10614, and it is illustrated by comparisons: 1873.

Note a piè di pagina:

1. In the end I can find no better word than 'beautiful' for Swedenborg's 'pulchra' here. I guess his thought is that the coherent sequence of ideas referred to is pleasing and satisfying, aesthetically and intellectually; hence, beautiful' which is the true classical meaning of the word anyway.

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

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Arcana Coelestia #3952

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3952. 'And he lay with her that night' means the actual joining together. This too becomes clear without explanation. The reason why the explanation of the expressions immediately preceding this has for the most part been limited to giving simply the meanings which they have in the internal sense is that they are the kind of things which cannot be understood unless they are presented separately one after another. For the subject is the joining of truth to good and of good to truth, and this joining together of them is the conjugial relationship meant in the spiritual sense; that is, when with man or in the Church the two are so joined together the heavenly marriage is effected. The arcana of this heavenly marriage have been described in the verses above, where they are shown to be the following: As has been stated, the heavenly marriage is a marriage of good to truth and of truth to good. It is not however a marriage between good and truth which both belong to one and the same degree, but between good and truth which belong one to a lower degree, the other to a higher. That is, it is not a marriage between the good of the external man and the truth of the same, but between the good of the external man and the truth of the internal man; or what amounts to the same, it is not a marriage between the good of the natural man and the truth of the same, but between the good of the natural man and the truth of the spiritual man. It is when good and truth of different degrees are joined together that the marriage comes into effect.

[2] The same applies in the internal or spiritual man. The heavenly marriage is not a marriage between the good and the truth present there but between the good of the spiritual man and the truth of the celestial man, for compared with the spiritual man the celestial man belongs to a higher degree. Nor again is the heavenly marriage between the good and the truth present there, but between the good of the celestial man and the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord. From this it is in addition evident that the Divine marriage itself within the Lord is not a marriage between the Divine good and the Divine truth present in His Divine Human but between the Good of the Divine Human and the Divine itself, that is, between the Son and the Father, for the Good of the Lord's Divine Human is that which in the Word is called 'the Son of God' and the Divine itself that which is called 'the Father'.

[3] These are the arcana contained in the internal sense present within the things said about the dudaim. Anyone may see that there is some arcanum hidden within them. For the following details - those about Reuben's finding dudaim in the field and Rachel's desiring them, and, so that she might acquire them, about her agreeing to their husband's lying with Leah, and about Leah's going out to meet Jacob when he came from the field in the evening and her saying that she had hired him for the dudaim - would not have been important enough for them to be mentioned in any historical description in the Word unless something Divine had lain hidden within them. Exactly what that something Divine is nobody can know unless he knows what is meant by the sons of Jacob and by the tribes named after them, and also unless he knows the flow of ideas belonging to the subject dealt with in the internal sense, and on top of this unless he knows what the heavenly marriage is. For that marriage is the subject; that is to say, the joining of the good of the external man to the affection for the truth of the internal man is the subject. But to enable this arcanum to be seen more clearly, let a further illustration be given.

[4] The truths of the external man are the facts and the matters of doctrine which he acquires first through parents and also teachers, after that through books, and at length by his own endeavours. The good of the external man is the pleasure and delight which he finds in those facts and matters of doctrine. Facts which are essentially truths, and delights which are essentially good, are joined together, but these do not constitute the heavenly marriage with him, for even with people who are governed by self-love and love of the world and who are consequently under the influence of evil and falsity, facts, and indeed matters of doctrine, are joined to delights; but they are the delights that go with self-love and love of the world, to which truths are able to be joined. All the same, such people are outside the heavenly marriage. But the heavenly marriage exists in a person when pleasure or delight, which essentially is the good of the external or natural man, stems from spiritual love. That is, the heavenly marriage exists with him when that good stems from love towards the neighbour, towards his country or the general public, towards the Church, towards the Lord's kingdom; and it exists even more fully when it stems from celestial love, which is love to the Lord. For when that spiritual or celestial love passes from the internal or spiritual man into the delight of the external or natural man and fashions that delight, it is then joined to the facts and the matters of doctrine of the external or natural. But such a marriage cannot exist with the evil, only with the good, that is to say, with those who have those things as the end in view. But see what has been said already in 3286, 3288, 3314, 3321, about the influx of the internal or spiritual man into the external or natural man.

[5] Once acquainted with these arcana one may now come to see the overall meaning of the individual expressions, the explanations of which in preceding paragraphs was limited simply to giving their individual meanings in the internal sense, those expressions and their meanings being these: 'Reuben', who means the truth of faith, which is the first stage of regeneration, 'found dudaim'; 'he brought them to Leah his mother' who means the affection for external truth; 'Rachel' who means the affection for interior truth 'desired them', and they were also 'given to her'; Leah therefore 'lay with Jacob her husband' who means the good of truth within the natural man. Likewise the expressions in what comes after this: Sons were born to Jacob by Leah, 'Issachar and Zebulun', by whom things to do with conjugial love and so with the heavenly marriage are meant and represented; and after this, 'Joseph' was born, by whom the Lord's spiritual kingdom - the marriage itself, which is the subject here - is meant and represented.

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