The Bible

 

Genesis 12

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1 And Jehovah had said to Abram, Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to the land that I will shew thee.

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

4 And Abram departed as Jehovah had said to him. And Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran.

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had acquired, and the souls that they had obtained in Haran, and they went out to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

6 And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

7 And Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him.

8 And he removed thence towards the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, [having] Bethel toward the west, and Ai toward the east; and there he built an altar to Jehovah, and called on the name of Jehovah.

9 And Abram moved onward, going on still toward the south.

10 And there was a famine in the land. And Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land.

11 And it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a woman fair to look upon.

12 And it will come to pass when the Egyptians see thee, that they will say, She is his wife; and they will slay me, and save thee alive.

13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me on thy account, and my soul may live because of thee.

14 And it came to pass when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

15 And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

16 And he treated Abram well on her account; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and bondmen, and bondwomen, and she-asses, and camels.

17 And Jehovah plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this thou hast done to me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19 Why didst thou say, She is my sister, so that I took her as my wife. And now, behold, there is thy wife: take [her], and go away.

20 And Pharaoh commanded [his] men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #1408

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1408. These and the things which follow occurred historically as they are written; but the historicals are representatives and all the words are significative. The case is the same with all the historicals of the Word, not only with those in the books of Moses, but also with those in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. In all these, nothing is apparent but mere history; but although it is history in the sense of the letter, still in the internal sense there are arcana of heaven, which lie stored up and hidden there, and which can never be seen so long as the mind, together with the eye, is kept in the historicals; nor are they revealed until the mind is removed from the sense of the letter. The Word of the Lord is like a body that contains within it a living soul; the things belonging to the soul do not appear while the mind is so fixed in corporeal things that it scarcely believes that there is a soul, still less that it will live after death; but as soon as the mind withdraws from corporeal things, those which are of the soul and life become manifest. And this also is the reason, not only why corporeal things must die before man can be born anew, or be regenerated, but also why the body itself must die so that he may come into heaven and see heavenly things.

[2] Such also is the case with the Word of the Lord: its corporeal things are those which are of the sense of the letter; and when the mind is kept in these, the internal things are not seen at all; but when the former are as it were dead, then for the first time are the latter presented to view. But still the things of the sense of the letter are similar to those which are with man while in the body, to wit, to the knowledges of the memory that come from the things of sense, and which are general vessels that contain interior or internal things within them. It may be known from this that the vessels are one thing, and the essentials contained in the vessels another. The vessels are natural; the essentials contained in the vessels are spiritual and celestial. So likewise the historicals of the Word, and all the expressions in the Word, are general, natural, and indeed material vessels, in which are things spiritual and celestial; and these in no wise come into view except by the internal sense.

[3] This will be evident to everyone from the mere fact that many things in the Word are said according to appearances, and indeed according to the fallacies of the senses, as that the Lord is angry, that He punishes, curses, kills, and many other such things; when yet in the internal sense they mean quite the contrary, namely, that the Lord is in no wise angry and punishes, still less does He curse and kill. And yet to those who from simplicity of heart believe the Word as they apprehend it in the letter, no harm is done while they live in charity. The reason is that the Word teaches nothing else than that everyone should live in charity with his neighbor, and love the Lord above all things. They who do this have in themselves the internal things; and therefore with them the fallacies taken from the sense of the letter are easily dispelled.

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