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Exodus 17

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1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, by their journeys, according to the commandment of Jehovah, and encamped in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.

2 Wherefore the people strove with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why strive ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt Jehovah?

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

4 And Moses cried unto Jehovah, saying, What shall I do unto this people? They are almost ready to stone me.

5 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Pass on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and they rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go.

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

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

8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

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

10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

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

12 But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

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

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

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

16 And he said, Jehovah hath sworn: Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

   

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Coronis (An Appendix to True Christian Religion) #20

Studere hoc loco

  
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20. That the Lord derives and produces the new Church on earth through the new heaven by means of a revelation of truths from His mouth or from His Word, and by inspiration, will be shown in the section concerning the four Churches in their order, especially concerning the Israelitish and the present Christian Church. It should be known, that, when hell surged up, and passed over the great interstice, or gulf, fixed between itself and heaven (Luke 16:26), and reared up its back even to the confines of the heavens where the angels are, - which came to pass at intervals of the vastation and consummation of the Church, - no doctrine whatever of the Church could be conveyed through heaven, from the Lord, to men of the earth. The reason is, that, at such times, man is in the midst of satans; and satans envelop his head with their falsities, and inspire the delights of evil and the consequent attractions of falsity, whereby all the light from heaven is darkened, and all the pleasure and attraction of truth is intercepted. As long as this state continues, there cannot be infused into man any doctrine whatever of truth and good out of heaven, because it is falsified. [2] But, after this tangled veil of falsities, or covering of the head by satans, is taken away by the Lord - which is effected by the Last Judgment (of which above, in Article IV.) - then man is led, in a freer and more spontaneous spirit, to discard falsities and to receive truths. With those who are compliant, and suffer themselves to be led by the Lord, the doctrine of the new heaven, which is the doctrine of truth and good, is afterwards conveyed down and introduced, like the morning dew falling from heaven to the earth, which opens the pores of plants, and sweetens their vegetable juices: and it is like the manna which fell in the mornings, and was in appearance

Like coriander seed, white, and in taste like a cake kneaded with honey (Exod. 16:31).

It is also like seasonable rain, which refreshes the newly-ploughed fields and causes germination, and like the fragrance exhaling from fields, gardens and flowery plains, which the breast eagerly and delightedly draws in with the breath. But still, the Lord compels or urges no one against his will, as one does a beast of burden with whips; but He draws and afterwards continually leads him who is willing, to all appearance as though the willing man did goods and believed truths of himself, when yet it is from the Lord, who operates every genuine good of life, and every genuine truth of faith in him.

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