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Exodus 21:18

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18 And when men shall strive, and a man shall smite his companion with a stone, or with his fist, and he dies not, but falls to bed;


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #9009

Studere hoc loco

  
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9009. 'And one who did not lie in wait' means when it was not contemplated beforehand by the will. This is clear from the meaning of 'lying in wait' as doing what has been thought up and so contemplated beforehand; for the ill that one lying in wait is going to do is contemplated in his mind beforehand. And since such ill done by him is contemplated beforehand it also has its origin in the will, for it comes forth from there. There are evils which come forth from a person's will but are not contemplated beforehand, and there those which come forth from his will and are contemplated beforehand. Those from the will and contemplated beforehand are far worse than those uncontemplated beforehand. For the person sees that they are evils and is therefore able to desist from them, but has no wish to; and by failing to do so he establishes them firmly within himself. And firmly established evils take on a character that makes it almost impossible for them to be rooted out afterwards. For at this time he summons spirits from hell, who after that rarely depart.

[2] Evils that come forth from one part of the mind and not at the same time from the other, such as those from the understanding part and not at the same time from the will part, do not take root and become the person's own. That alone takes root and becomes his own which passes from the understanding part into the will part, or what amounts to the same thing, from thought belonging to the understanding into affection belonging to the will, and from there into action. Things that enter the will are those which are said to enter the heart.

[3] Evils however which come forth solely from the will, thus not from prior thought about them, are those such as a person is prone to owing to heredity or owing to some previous activity resulting from hereditary inclinations. These evils are not ascribed to the person unless he has established them firmly in the understanding part of his mind, 966, 2308, 8806. But when they have been firmly established there they have been inscribed on the person, becoming properly his own; then they are attributable to him. But those evils cannot become firmly established with a person in the understanding part of his mind until he reaches adult life, that is to say, when he starts to think for himself and be wise. Till then he trusts not in himself but in teachers and parents.

All this shows what the meaning is of 'one who did not lie in wait', namely when it was not contemplated beforehand by the will.

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

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #5407

Studere hoc loco

  
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5407. 'And let us live and not die' means spiritual life. This is clear from the meaning of 'living and not dying' as spiritual life, for nothing else than this is meant in the internal sense by 'living and not dying'. In the next life 'life' generally means heaven, but specifically it means eternal happiness, while 'death' generally means hell, but specifically eternal unhappiness there, as is also evident from many places in the Word. The reason why heaven generally and eternal happiness specifically are called 'life' is that wisdom, which essentially is good, and intelligence, which essentially is truth, are present in heaven, and the life of such wisdom and intelligence is received from the Lord, the Source of the whole of life. But because the contrary of this exists in hell - that is to say, evil exists instead of good, and falsity instead of truth, so that spiritual life has been snuffed out there - what exists there, compared with that existing in heaven, is death. For spiritual death consists in evil and falsity, and it exists with man as the desire for what is evil and a consequent thinking what is false. Evil genii and spirits refuse to listen when it is said that they have no life or that they are dead. For they say that they do have life since they have the power of will and the power of thought. But they are told that since life resides in what is good and true it cannot possibly do so in what is evil and false, because the two are contraries.

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