Biblija

 

1 Samuel 23

Studija

   

1 David was told, "Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors."

2 Therefore David inquired of Yahweh, saying, "Shall I go and strike these Philistines?" Yahweh said to David, "go strike the Philistines, and save Keilah."

3 David's men said to him, "Behold, we are afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?"

4 Then David inquired of Yahweh yet again. Yahweh answered him, and said, "Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand."

5 David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their livestock, and killed them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

6 It happened, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.

7 It was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. Saul said, "God has delivered him into my hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that has gates and bars."

8 Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.

9 David knew that Saul was devising mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, "Bring the ephod here."

10 Then David said, "O Yahweh, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.

11 Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? Yahweh, the God of Israel, I beg you, tell your servant." Yahweh said, "He will come down."

12 Then David said, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?" Yahweh said, "They will deliver you up."

13 Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went wherever they could go. It was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he gave up going there.

14 David stayed in the wilderness in the strongholds, and remained in the hill country in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God didn't deliver him into his hand.

15 David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph in the wood.

16 Jonathan, Saul's son, arose, and went to David into the woods, and strengthened his hand in God.

17 He said to him, "Don't be afraid; for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you; and you shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you; and that also Saul my father knows."

18 They both made a covenant before Yahweh: and David stayed in the woods, and Jonathan went to his house.

19 Then the Ziphites came up to Saul to Gibeah, saying, "Doesn't David hide himself with us in the strongholds in the wood, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of the desert?

20 Now therefore, O king, come down, according to all the desire of your soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him up into the king's hand."

21 Saul said, "You are blessed by Yahweh; for you have had compassion on me.

22 Please go make yet more sure, and know and see his place where his haunt is, [and] who has seen him there; for it is told me that he deals very subtly.

23 See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hides himself, and come again to me with certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall happen, if he is in the land, that I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah."

24 They arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert.

25 Saul and his men went to seek him. When David was told, he went down to the rock, and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard [that], he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon.

26 Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men surrounded David and his men to take them.

27 But a messenger came to Saul, saying, "Hurry and come; for the Philistines have made a raid on the land!"

28 So Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines: therefore they called that place Sela Hammahlekoth.

29 David went up from there, and lived in the strongholds of En Gedi.

   

Komentar

 

Afraid

  
{{en|Walking on Water}}

Fear of the unknown and fear of change are both common ideas and together cover a broad spectrum of the fears we tend to have in natural life. In a sense, they also lie behind the spiritual meaning when people are described as being "afraid" in the Bible. In Swedenborg's works, people are described as being afraid when a more higher spiritual state comes into communication with a lower, more external state and demonstrates the need for the lower state to be reformed and elevated. That's the case with the shepherds in the Christmas story, reacting first with fear when angels came to tell them of a whole new spiritual era. It's true of Moses at the burning bush, Jacob after the vision of the ladder, even the disciples seeing Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee – all cases in which a higher state was reaching out to them and asking them to embrace a new phase of spiritual life. This also holds in a more negative sense, when states of evil and false thinking come into contact with spiritual things and feel threatened by the revelation of their own wretchedness. The Bible also speaks frequently of people fearing God, a related but different idea which is covered elsewhere.

In Genesis 3:10; 18:15, Exodus 3:6, being afraid signifies apprehension lest one offend or be hurt. (Arcana Coelestia 223-224, Arcana Coelestia 2215, Arcana Coelestia 6849)

Iz Swedenborgovih djela

 

Arcana Coelestia #6849

Proučite ovaj odlomak

  
/ 10837  
  

6849. 'For he was afraid to look at God' means for fear that they should suffer harm from the presence of the Divine itself. This is clear from the meaning of 'being afraid' as for fear that they, interior things, should suffer harm (for this was the reason for his fear); and from the meaning of 'looking at God' as the presence of the Divine itself. For the only way in which the Lord can make Himself present before a person is through the persons inner seeing, through seeing Him with the eye of faith that belongs to charity. If the Lord does manifest Himself in an outward visible form to someone, it is still the inner levels of mind that are affected, for the Divine reaches into the deepest parts of him. With regard to the meaning here, that interior things should not suffer harm from the presence of the Divine itself, and that therefore they were to be protected, the situation is this: The Divine itself is pure love, and pure love is like a fire hotter than the fire of the sun in this world. Consequently if Divine Love in its purity were to flow into any angel, spirit, or man, he would be completely destroyed, which is why so many times in the Word Jehovah or the Lord is called a consuming fire. To ensure therefore that the angels in heaven suffer no harm from the flow of heat from the Lord as the sun, each of them is veiled with a kind of thin cloud suited to the individual, which moderates the heat flowing in from that sun.

[2] The truth that without this form of preservation everyone would be destroyed by the presence of the Divine had been well known to the ancients, which was why they were afraid of seeing God, as is clear in the Book of Judges,

Gideon saw that he was the angel of Jehovah, therefore Gideon said, O Lord Jehovah! Inasmuch as I have seen the angel of Jehovah face to face. And Jehovah said to him, Peace be to you; do not fear, for you will not die. Judges 6:12, 23.

In the same book,

Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, for we have seen God. Judges 13:22.

And in the Book of Exodus,

Jehovah said to Moses, You cannot see My face, for no man will see My face and live. Exodus 33:20.

[3] When therefore Moses was allowed to see God, he was placed in a cleft of the rock, Exodus 33:22, which represented the dimness of his faith, and the clouds that hid and protected him. How dangerous it can be for angels to be beheld by the Divine without being covered by a cloud is made very clear by the fact that when angels look at any spirit who is governed by evil he seems to change into something resembling a lifeless object, as I have often been allowed to see. The reason why this happens is that when the angels look at someone there is cast in his direction the light and heat of heaven, and the truth of faith and the good of love with them, which - when these penetrate - virtually deprive the evil of life.

[4] If this is what happens when angels look at them, what would happen if the Lord did so? This explains why the hells are utterly remote from heaven, and why those who are there wish to be remote, for if they are not they suffer dreadful torment. This makes plain the meaning of the following words, They will say to the mountains and rocks, Rush down on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne. Revelation 6:16; Luke 23:30; Hosea 10:8.

[5] Thus the presence of the Divine itself is such that no angel can bear it unless he is protected by a cloud which tempers and moderates the rays of light and the heat from that sun. From this one may recognize plainly that the Lord's Human is Divine, for if it were not Divine it could never have become so united to the Divine itself, called the Father, that they are one, according to the Lord's words in John 14:10 and following verses, and elsewhere. For that which is to receive the Divine in this way must be wholly Divine; what was not Divine from such a union would be plainly reduced to nothing. Let me use a comparison. Can anything be thrown into the fire of the sun and not be destroyed, unless it is similar in nature to the sun? So, can anyone enter the intense heat of infinite love unless he has in him the heat of the same kind of love, consequently unless he is none other than the Lord? The truth that the Father is within Him and that the Father does not show Himself except within His Divine Human is clear from the Lord's words in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

And elsewhere in the same gospel,

You have never heard His voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

  
/ 10837  
  

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