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Exodus 25:9

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9 Du skal indrette Boligen og alt dens Tilbehør nøje efter det Forbillede, jeg vil vise dig.


The Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie Mellon University

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Apocalypse Revealed #939

Studere hoc loco

  
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939. The fact that seeing the Lord's face does not mean seeing His face, but knowing and acknowledging Him as He is in respect to His Divine attributes, of which there are many, and that people conjoined with Him by love know Him and in that way see His face, can be seen from the following passages:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me... ...When you come to see the face of Jehovah... (Isaiah 1:11-12)

My heart said..., "Seek my face. Your face, Jehovah, I am seeking." (Psalms 27:8)

We will shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His face with confession. (Psalms 95:1-2)

My soul thirsts... for the living God. When shall I come to see the face of God? ...yet shall I confess to Him the salvation of His countenance. (Psalms 42:2, 5)

They shall not see My face empty-handed. (Exodus 23:15)

...to come... to placate the face of Jehovah. (Zechariah 8:21-22, cf. Malachi 1:9)

Make Your face shine upon Your servant. (Psalms 31:16)

Who will show us any good? Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, Jehovah. (Psalms 4:6)

They shall walk, O Jehovah, in the light of Your countenance. (Psalms 89:15)

...O God, cause Your face to shine, that we may be saved! (Psalms 80:3, 7, 19)

God be merciful to us and bless us. May He cause His face to shine upon us. (Psalms 67:1)

Jehovah bless you and keep you; Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be merciful to you; Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

You hide them in the secret place of Your countenance... (Psalms 31:20)

You have set... our hidden secret in the light of Your countenance. (Psalms 90:8)

(Jehovah) said (to Moses), "My countenance will go... (Moses) said..., "If Your countenance does not go..., do not bring us down from here." (Exodus 33:14-15)

The bread on the table in the Tabernacle was called [literally] "the bread of faces" (Exodus 25:30, Numbers 4:7).

[2] We are often told, too, that Jehovah hid His face or turned His face away, as in the following:

...for (their) wickedness I have hidden My face from (them). (Jeremiah 33:5, cf. Ezekiel 7:22)

Your sins have hidden (God's) face from you... (Isaiah 59:2)

The face of Jehovah... will no longer regard them. (Lamentations 4:16)

(Jehovah) will hide His face from them..., according as they have made their works evil. (Micah 3:4)

You hid Your face... (Psalms 30:7, cf. 44:24; 104:29)

I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them... I will surely hide My face... because of all the evil which they have done... (Deuteronomy 31:17-18)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 8:17; Ezekiel 39:23, 28-29; Deuteronomy 32:20.

[3] In an opposite sense, the face of Jehovah symbolizes anger and aversion, because an evil person turns away from the Lord, and when he turns away, it seems to him as though the Lord had turned away and was angry, as is clear from the following passages:

...I have set My face against this city for its evil... (Jeremiah 21:10, cf. 44:11)

I will set My face against that man and... devastate him... (Ezekiel 14:7-8)

I will set My face against them... and... fire shall devour them..., when I set My face against them. (Ezekiel 15:7)

...(he) who eats any blood, I will set My face against that soul... (Leviticus 17:10)

At the rebuke of Your countenance they perished. (Psalms 80:16)

The face of Jehovah is against those who do evil... (Psalms 34:16)

...I send an angel before you... Beware of his face..., for he will not endure your transgression. (Exodus 23:20-21)

Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee from Your countenance. (Numbers 10:35)

(I saw one sitting on the throne) from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. (Revelation 20:11)

That no one can see the Lord as He is in Himself, as we said above, is apparent from the following:

(Jehovah said to Moses,) "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." (Exodus 33:18-23)

That people nevertheless saw the Lord and lived, because He appeared by means of an angel, is apparent from Genesis 32:30, 1 Judges 13:22-23, 2 and elsewhere.

V:

1. Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: "For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

2. Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God!" But his wife said to him, "If Jehovah had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time."

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

Bibliorum

 

Numbers 5

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1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

2 "Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and everyone who has an issue, and whoever is unclean by the dead.

3 Both you shall put male and female outside of the camp; that they not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell."

4 The children of Israel did so, and put them out outside of the camp; as Yahweh spoke to Moses, so did the children of Israel.

5 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

6 "Speak to the children of Israel: 'When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit, so as to trespass against Yahweh, and that soul is guilty;

7 then he shall confess his sin which he has done, and he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add to it the fifth part of it, and give it to him in respect of whom he has been guilty.

8 But if the man has no kinsman to whom restitution may be made for the guilt, the restitution for guilt which is made to Yahweh shall be the priest's; besides the ram of the atonement, by which atonement shall be made for him.

9 Every heave offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they present to the priest, shall be his.

10 Every man's holy things shall be his: whatever any man gives the priest, it shall be his.'"

11 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

12 "Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them: 'If any man's wife goes astray, and is unfaithful to him,

13 and a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and is kept close, and she is defiled, and there is no witness against her, and she isn't taken in the act;

14 and the spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she is defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she isn't defiled:

15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring her offering for her: the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal. He shall pour no oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to memory.

16 The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh;

17 and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water.

18 The priest shall set the woman before Yahweh, and let the hair of the woman's head go loose, and put the meal offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal offering of jealousy. The priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings a curse.

19 The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, "If no man has lain with you, and if you haven't gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse.

20 But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:"

21 then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, "Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;

22 and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away." The woman shall say, "Amen, Amen."

23 "'The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.

24 He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter.

25 The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.

26 The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.

27 When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people.

28 If the woman isn't defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

29 "'This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, being under her husband, goes astray, and is defiled;

30 or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before Yahweh, and the priest shall execute on her all this law.

31 The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.'"