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Genesis 22

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1 Efter disse Begivenheder satte Gud Abraham på Prøve og sagde til ham: "Abraham!" Han svarede: "Se, her er jeg!"

2 Da sagde han: "Tag din Søn Isak, din eneste, ham, du elsker, og drag hen til Morija Land.og bring ham der som Brændoffer på et af Bjergene, som jeg vil vise dig!"

3 Da sadlede Abraham tidligt næste Morgen sit Æsel, tog to af sine Drenge og sin Søn Isak med sig, og efter at have kløvet Offerbrænde gav han sig på Vandring; til det Sted, Gud havde sagt ham.

4 Da Abraham den tredje Dag så. op, fik han Øje på Stedet langt borte.

5 sagde Abraham til sine Drenge: "Bliv her med Æselet, medens jeg og Drengen vandrer der. hen for at tilbede; så kommer vi tilbage til eder."

6 Abraham tog da Brændet til Brændofferet og lagde,det på sin Søn Isak; selv tog han Ilden og Offerkniven, og så gik de to sammen.

7 Da sagde Isak til sin Fader Abraham: "Fader!" Han svarede: "Ja. min Søn!" Da sagde han: "Her er Ilden og Brændet, men hvor er Dyret til Brændofferet?"

8 Abraham svarede: "Gud vil selv udse sig Dyret til Brændofferet, min Søn!" Og så gik de to sammen.

9 Da de nåede det Sted, Gud havde sagt ham, byggede Abraham der et Alter og lagde Brændet til ette; så bandt han sin Søn Isak og lagde ham på Alteret oven på Brændet.

10 Og Abraham greb Kniven og rakte Hånden ud for at slagte sin Søn.

11 Da råbte HE ENs Engel til ham fra Himmelen: "Abraham, Abraham!" Han svarede: "Se, her er jeg!"

12 Da sagde Engelen: " æk ikke din Hånd ud mod Drengen og gør ham ikke noget; thi nu ved jeg, at du frygter Gud og end ikke sparer din Søn, din eneste, for mig!"

13 Og da Abraham nu så op, fik han bag ved sig Øje på en Væder, hvis Horn havde viklet sig ind i de tætte Grene; og Abraham gik hen og tog Væderen og ofrede den som Brændoffer i sin Søns Sted.

14 Derfor kaldte Abraham dette Sted: HE EN udser sig, eller, som man nu til dags siger: Bjerget, hvor HE EN viser sig.

15 Men HE ENs Engel råbte atter til Abraham fra Himmelen:

16 "Jeg sværger ved mig selv, lyder det fra HE EN: Fordi du har gjort dette og ikke sparet din Søn, din eneste, for mig,

17 så vil jeg velsigne dig og gøre dit Afkom talrigt som Himmelens Stjerner og Sandet ved Havets Bred; og dit Afkom skal tage sine Fjenders Porte i Besiddelse;

18 og i din Sæd skal alle Jordens Folk velsignes, fordi du adlød mig!"

19 Derpå vendte Abraham tilbage til sine Drenge, og de brød op og tog sammen til Be'ersjeba. Og Abraham blev i Be'ersjeba.

20 Efter disse Begivenheder meldte man Abraham: "Også Milka har født din Broder Nakor Sønner:

21 Uz, hans førstefødte, dennes Broder Buz, Kemuel, Arams Fader,

22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildasj, Jidlaf og Betuel;

23 Betuel avlede ebekka; disse otte har Milka født Abrahams Broder Nakor,

24 og desuden har hans Medhustru e'uma født Teba, Gaham, Tahasj og Ma'aka."

   


The Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie Mellon University

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2777

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2777. 'On one of the mountains' means Divine love. This is clear from the meaning of 'a mountain' as love, dealt with in 795, 796, 1430, here Divine love since it has reference to the Lord. For the nature of that love, see 1690, 1601 (end), 1789, 1812, 1820, 2077, 2253, 2500, 2572. As it was Divine love from which the Lord fought and overcame in temptations, and from which He sanctified and glorified Himself, Abraham is in this verse told to offer Isaac as a burnt offering 'on one of the mountains' in the land of Moriah. Light is shed on this representative act by the fact that David built an altar, and Solomon the Temple, on Mount Moriah, 2775. For the altar on which burnt offerings and sacrifices were offered, and later the Temple, was the chief representative of the Lord. The fact that the altar was the chief representative of Him may be seen in 921 and is clear in David,

They will bring me to Your holy mountain and to Your dwellings. Then I will go in to the altar or God, to God my exceeding joy. Psalms 43:3-4.

And that 'the Temple' was representative of Him is clear in John,

Jesus said, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. He was speaking of the temple of His body. John 2:19, 21.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1820

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1820. 'By what shall I know that I shall inherit it?' means temptation directed against the Lord's love which wished to be made quite certain of the outcome. This becomes clear from the feeling of doubt which the words express. Anyone who is undergoing temptation experiences doubt as regards the end in view. That end is the love against which evil spirits and evil genii fight and in so doing place the end in doubt. And the greater his love is, the more they place it in doubt. Unless the end in view which a person loves is placed in doubt, and even in despair, there would be no temptation. A feeling of certainty about the outcome precedes, and is part of, victory.

[2] Since few people know what temptations really are, let a brief explanation of them be given here. Evil spirits never contend against any other things than those which a person loves, and the more intensely he loves them the more fiercely do those spirits contend. Evil genii are the ones that contend against the things of affection for what is good, and evil spirits are the ones that do so against the affection for what is true. As soon as they detect even the smallest thing that a person loves or get a scent, so to speak, of what is delightful and precious to him, they attack it instantly and try to destroy it, and so the whole person, since his life consists in his loves. Nothing ever gives them greater delight than to destroy a person; nor would they leave off but would continue even for ever, if the Lord did not drive them away. Those who are ill-disposed and deceitful worm their way into those very loves by flattering them, and in this way they bring a person in among themselves. And once they have so brought him in, they very soon try to destroy his loves and so to slay that person, which they do in a thousand unimaginable ways.

[3] Nor are the attacks which they make solely those in which they reason against goods and truths - the making of such attacks being nothing to them, for if they were defeated a thousand times over they would carry on with them because their supply of reasonings against goods and truths can never be exhausted. Rather, in their attacks, they pervert goods and truths, setting these ablaze with a certain kind of evil desire and of persuasion, so that the person himself does not know any other than that similar desire and persuasion reign within him. At the same time they infuse those goods and truths with delight which they seize from the delight which that person has in some other thing. In these ways they infect and infest him most deceitfully, doing it all so skillfully by leading him from the one thing to another that if the Lord did not come to his aid, that person would never know other than that it was indeed so.

[4] They act in similar ways against the affections for truth that constitute conscience. As soon as they become aware of anything, whatever the nature of it, that is a constituent part of that conscience, they mould an affection out of the falsities and weaknesses that exist with that person, and by means of that affection they dim the light of truth and so pervert it, or else they cause him anxiety and torment. In addition to this they keep his thought firmly fixed on one single thing; and they fill that thought with delusions, at the same time secretly incorporating evil desires within those delusions. Besides this they use countless other devices which cannot possibly be described so as to be understood. These are a few of the ways - and only very general ones - by which they are able to get at a person's conscience, which above all else they take the greatest delight in destroying.

[5] These few, indeed very few, observations show the nature of temptations - in general that the nature of a person's temptations is as the nature of his loves. They also show the nature of the Lord's temptations, that these were the most dreadful of all, for as is the intensity of the love so is the dreadfulness of the temptations. The Lord's love - a most ardent love - was the salvation of the whole human race; it was therefore a total affection for good and affection for truth in the highest degree. Against these all the hells contended, employing the most malicious forms of guile and venom, but the Lord nevertheless conquered them all by His own power. Victories have this effect, that after they have been won, wicked genii and spirits do not dare to attempt anything; for their life consists in their being able to destroy, but when they perceive that a person is able to withstand them, they flee even when they are making their first assault, as they usually do when they draw near to merely the threshold of heaven. They are straightaway gripped with horror and dread and hurl themselves back in retreat.

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