The Bible

 

Exodus 20

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1 And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill.

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15 Thou shalt not steal.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God Speak with us, lest we die.

20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Providence #230

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230. The profanation of what is holy is referred to in the second of the Ten Commandments in the words, "You shall not profane the name of your God" [Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11]; and the Lord's prayer is telling us that we must not profane what is holy when it says, "Hallowed be your name" [Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2]. Hardly anyone in all Christendom knows what "the name of God" means. This is because people do not know that people in the spiritual world do not have names the way we do in this physical world. Rather, each individual is named for her or his own love and wisdom. As soon as we enter a community or a gathering of people, we are immediately given a name that expresses our nature. We are named in a spiritual language that is essentially able to give a distinctive name to every individual thing, because every letter in its alphabet means something definite; and when many letters are combined into a single word, as happens with an individual's name, they include the whole state of that object. This is just one of the marvels of the spiritual world.

[2] We can see from this that in the Word, "the name of God" means both God and everything divine that is in him and that emanates from him. Since the Word is a divine emanation, it is a name of God; and since all the divine gifts that we refer to as the spiritual gifts of the church come from the Word, they too are a name of God.

This enables us to see what "You shall not profane the name of your God" means in the second of the Ten Commandments, and what "Hallowed be your name" means in the Lord's Prayer.

"The name of God" and "the name of the Lord" mean much the same in many passages in the Word in both Testaments. See, for example, Matthew 7:22; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 18:5, 20; Matthew 19:29; Matthew 21:9; Matthew 24:9-10; John 1:12; John 2:23; John 3:17-18; John 12:13, 28; John 14:14-15, 16; John 16:23-24, 26-27; John 17:6; and John 20:31, among others, as well as a great many in the Old Testament.

[3] If you know the meaning of this "name," then you can know the meaning of the Lord's words, "Whoever accepts a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. Whoever receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward; and whoever gives one of these little ones something cold to drink in the name of a disciple will not lose the reward" (Matthew 10:21 [Matthew 10:41-42]). If you understand the name of a prophet or a righteous person or a disciple to mean nothing but the prophet or the righteous person or the disciple, then the only meaning you get will be a literal one. You will not know, either, what is meant by the reward of the prophet or the reward of the righteous person or the reward for the cold drink given on behalf of the disciple. Yet the name and the reward of the prophet mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of truth, and the name and the reward of the righteous person mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of what is good, while the disciple means the state of people who have some of the spiritual gifts of the church, and the cold drink is any element of truth.

[4] We can also tell that the name means the nature of the state of love and wisdom, or of what is good and true, from these words of the Lord: "The one who comes in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens to him and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (Matthew 10:2, 3 [John 10:2-3]). "Calling sheep by name" is teaching and leading every individual whose deeds are prompted by caring, and doing so in keeping with that individual's state of love and wisdom. "The door" means the Lord, as we can tell from verse 9: "I am the door. Anyone who enters in by me will be saved." This shows that we need to turn to the Lord himself if we are to be saved, and that the one who does turn to him is a shepherd of his sheep. Anyone who does not turn to him is a thief and a robber, as it says in the first verse of the same chapter.

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