The Bible

 

Genesis 22

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1 After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am.

2 He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision: and there thou shalt offer him for a holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will show thee.

3 So Abraham rising up in the night, saddled his ass: and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut wood for the holocaust he went his way to the place which God had commanded him.

4 And on the third day, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar off.

5 And he said to his young men: Stay you here with the ass: I and the boy will go with speed as far as yonder, and after we have worshipped, will return to you.

6 And he took the wood for the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son: and he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword. And as they two went on together,

7 Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust?

8 And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son. So they went on together.

9 And they came to the place which God had shown him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it: and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood.

10 And he put forth his hand and took the sword, to sacrifice his son.

11 And behold an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him, saying: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am.

12 And he said to him: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake.

13 Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram amongst the briers sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son.

14 And he called the name of that place, The Lord seeth. Whereupon even to this day it is said: In the mountain The Lord will see.

15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, saying:

16 By my own self have I sworn, saith the Lord: because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake:

17 I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the seashore: thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies.

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.

19 Abraham returned to his young men, and they went to Bersabee together, and he dwelt there.

20 After these things, it was told Abraham that Melcha also had borne children to Nachor his brother.

21 Hus the firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Camuel the father of the Syrians,

22 And Cased, and Azau, and Pheldas, and Jedlaph,

23 And Bathuel, of whom was born Rebecca: These eight did Melcha bear to Nachor Abraham's brother.

24 And his concubine, named Roma, bore Tabee, and Gaham, and Tahas, and Maacha.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2691

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2691. 'God heard the boy's voice' means help at that point. This is clear from the meaning in the internal sense of 'God hearing the voice 'the words used in the historical sense - as bringing help, and from the meaning of 'the boy' as spiritual truth, dealt with already. Here a state is meant in which the spiritual as regards truth existed, for it is said that 'He heard the boy's voice' and soon after in this verse that 'He heard the boy's voice where he was', that is to say, where he was as to state. And, in the explanations of the verses immediately before, this state was shown to be one of utmost grief because truth had been taken away. The reason it was the boy's voice, not Hagar's, that God is said to have heard is that the state of the spiritual man is the subject. 'The boy', or Ishmael, represents the member of the spiritual Church, 'Hagar his mother' the affection for cognitions of truth, it being within this affection that the grief was felt. Man's rational is born from the affection for factual knowledge as a mother, 1895, 1896, 1902, 1910, 2094, 2524, but his spiritual is born from the affection for cognitions of truth acquired from doctrine, chiefly from the Word. Here the spiritual itself is 'the boy', and the affection for cognitions of truth is 'Hagar'.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2094

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2094. The previous chapter and the present chapter up to this point have dealt with the conception and birth of the Rational within the Lord; and how this was made Divine is also dealt with in what follows. But some may possibly suppose that knowing these details does not contribute very much to faith, provided one knows that the Lord's Human Essence was made Divine and that the Lord is God as regards both Essences. The position however is this: People who in simplicity believe it to be so do not need to know how it became so, for the only reason for their knowing how it became so is so that they may believe that it is so.

[2] There are many at the present day who do not believe anything unless they know it to be so from reason, as is made quite clear from the fact that few believe in the Lord, although they make lip confession of belief for the reason that the doctrine of faith so teaches. Nevertheless they tell themselves and one another that if they knew it could be so they would believe. The reason they do not believe and yet say this is that the Lord was born as any other is born and to outward appearance was like any other. These people cannot possibly receive any faith unless they first of all grasp in some measure how it can be so. This is why these matters have been explained. Those who believe the Word in simplicity do not need to know all these details because they have already arrived at the end which those who have just been described cannot reach except by becoming acquainted with such details.

[3] What is more, these are the details which are contained in the internal sense, and the internal sense is the Word of the Lord in heaven. Those who are in heaven perceive it in this fashion. When someone is in touch with the truth, that is, with the internal sense, he is able to make one as to thought with those in heaven, even though his ideas are by comparison very general and very obscure. The celestial ones there, who possess faith itself, see that those things are so from good, whereas the spiritual ones see the same from truth. The spiritual ones are also confirmed, and in that way perfected, by such things as are contained in the internal sense, that confirmation being achieved however by means of thousands of interior reasons which cannot flow into man's pattern of thought so as to be perceived there.

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