The Bible

 

創世記 16

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1 亞伯蘭的妻子撒萊不給他生兒女。撒萊有一個使女,名叫夏甲,是埃及人。

2 撒萊對亞伯蘭耶和華使我不能生育。求你和我的使女同房,或者我可以因他得孩子(原文作被建立)。亞伯蘭聽從了撒萊的話。

3 於是亞伯蘭的妻子撒萊將使女埃及人夏甲丈夫為妾;那時亞伯蘭迦南已經年。

4 亞伯蘭與夏甲同房,夏甲就懷了孕;他見自己有孕,就小他的主母。

5 撒萊對亞伯蘭:我因你受屈。我將我的使女放在你中,他見自己有了孕,就小我。願耶和華在你我中間判斷

6 亞伯蘭對撒萊:使女在你下,你可以隨意待他。撒萊苦待他,他就從撒萊面前逃走了。

7 耶和華的使者在曠野書珥上的泉旁遇見他,

8 對他:撒萊的使女夏甲,你從那裡?要往那裡去?夏甲:我從我的主母撒萊面前逃出

9 耶和華的使者對他:你回到你母那裡,服在他

10 :我必使你的後裔極其繁多,甚至不可勝

11 :你如今懷孕要生一個兒子,可以給他起名以實瑪利,因為耶和華見了你的苦情。(以實瑪利就是神見的意思)

12 他為人必像野驢。他的要攻打人,人的也要攻打他;他必住在眾弟兄的東邊。

13 夏甲就稱那對他說話耶和華顧人的神。因而:在這裡我也見那顧我的麼?

14 所以這庇耳拉海萊。這正在加低斯和巴列中間。

15 後來夏甲給亞伯蘭生了一個兒子亞伯蘭給他起名以實瑪利

16 夏甲給亞伯蘭以實瑪利的時候,亞伯蘭八十六歲。

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1914

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1914. That 'may the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant-girl into your bosom' means its unwillingness to take any blame is clear without explanation. In the internal sense these words embody within themselves the truth that the Lord perceived this first rational to be such as despised intellectual truth, and for that reason He reproached it. The Lord did indeed think from intellectual truth, as stated above in 1904; and because that truth was superior to the rational, He was able to perceive and see the nature of the rational, that is to say, that it held that truth in contempt.

[2] The Lord's being able from the interior man to perceive and see the nature of the new rational within Himself becomes clear from the fact that what is interior is able to perceive that which occurs in the exterior, or what amounts to the same, what is higher is able to see that which occurs in that which is lower, but not the reverse. Moreover, those who have conscience are able and are accustomed to do the same, for when anything contrary to the truth constituting conscience enters their thought or the intentions of their will, they not only recognize it for what it is but also pour blame upon it; indeed it grieves them that their own nature is such. This is all the more true of those who have perception, for perception is more interior within the rational. What then could the Lord not do who had Divine celestial perception and whose thought sprang from the affection for intellectual truth which is above the rational? Therefore He could not be anything else but righteously angry since He knew that no evil or falsity at all stemmed from Himself and that from the affection for truth He strove anxiously with all His might so that the rational might be pure. From this it becomes clear that the Lord did not despise intellectual truth, yet perceived that the first rational with Him did so.

[3] What thinking from intellectual truth is cannot be explained intelligibly, all the less so because nobody except the Lord has ever thought from that affection and that kind of truth. Anyone who thinks from them is above the angelic heaven, for the angels of the third heaven do not think from intellectual truth but from the interior part of the rational. But to the extent that the Lord united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, He thought from Divine Good itself, that is, from Jehovah.

[4] The early fathers of the Most Ancient Church, who had perception, thought from the interior rational. The fathers of the Ancient Church, who did not have perception but conscience, thought from the exterior or natural rational. But all who do not have conscience never think from the rational at all, since they have no rational however much they appear to do so. Instead they think from the sensory and the bodily experience of the natural. People who do not have conscience are unable to think from the rational for the reason, as has been stated, that they have no rational. The rational man is one in whom the good and truth of faith are the substance of his thought and never one who thinks in opposition to these. Those in whom evil and falsity are the substance of their thought are insane as to their thought and therefore the rational cannot be attributed to them.

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