The Bible

 

Genesis 16

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1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had given him no children; and she had a servant, a woman of Egypt whose name was Hagar.

2 And Sarai said to Abram, See, the Lord has not let me have children; go in to my servant, for I may get a family through her. And Abram did as Sarai said.

3 So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram for his wife.

4 And he went in to Hagar and she became with child, and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for her master's wife.

5 And Sarai said to Abram, May my wrong be on you: I gave you my servant for your wife and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for me: may the Lord be judge between you and me.

6 And Abram said, The woman is in your power; do with her whatever seems good to you. And Sarai was cruel to her, so that she went running away from her.

7 And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur.

8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife.

9 And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority.

10 And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered.

11 And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow.

12 And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers.

13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?

14 So that fountain was named, fountain of Life and Vision: it is between Kadesh and Bered.

15 And Hagar gave birth to a child, the son of Abram, to whom Abram gave the name of Ishmael.

16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1923

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1923. 'And she fled from her face' means the anger of this rational conceived first. This too is clear without explanation, for fleeing from someone's face is nothing else than finding their presence unbearable, on account of one's own anger. Here the anger borne by this rational towards intellectual truth is described because such truth, or the Lord, wished to humiliate or suppress it. When the rational part of the mind rises up against the intellectual part inward conflict results, together with anger on the part of that which is being suppressed. This is what happens in temptations which are nothing else than inward conflicts or clashes and struggles over who is to have power and control, evils being ranged in those conflicts on one side and goods on the other.

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