Bibliorum

 

Exodus 24:16

Study

       

16 And the glory of Jehovah abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

Commentarius

 

Build

  
Cardinal Cisneros directs the construction of the Hospital of the Charity, by Alejandro Ferrant

There are really two meanings for "build" in the Bible. When something is being built for the first time, or built in the most typical sense, it means collecting relatively external ideas to build up a doctrinal system. In other cases, though, "build" is used in reference to something that has been destroyed. In such cases, "build" refers to removing our desires for evil so we can began a new stage of spiritual growth. In these cases "build" is often used together with "raise up," which means removing false ways of thinking in the same process.

(Notae: Arcana Coelestia 153, 1488, 4390)

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #153

Studere hoc loco

  
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153. It is said that the rib was built into a woman, and not as previously, when regeneration was the subject, that the woman was created, or formed, or made. The word 'built' is used because building means reconstructing that which has fallen down. This is how it is used in the Word, where 'building' has reference to evils, 'raising up' to falsities, and 'renewing' to both, as in Isaiah,

They will build up the waste places of old, they will raise up the former desolations, and they will renew the waste cities, the desolations of generation upon generation. Isaiah 61:4.

'Waste places' here and elsewhere stands for evils, 'desolations' for falsities. The expression 'to build' is applied to the former, 'to raise up' to the latter, and this distinction is also carefully observed in other places in the Prophets: in Jeremiah,

Again I will build you, that you may be built, O virgin of Israel. Jeremiah 31:4.

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