The Bible

 

Genesis 14

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1 Anomis dienomis karalius Amrafelis iš Šinaro, karalius Arjochas iš Elasaro, Elamo karalius Kedorlaomeras ir Goimo karalius Tidalas

2 pradėjo karą su Sodomos karaliumi Bera, Gomoros karaliumi Birša, Admos karaliumi Šinabu, Ceboimo karaliumi Šemeberu ir karaliumi Belos, dar vadinamo Coaru.

3 Visi šitie, sudarę sąjungą, ėjo į Sidimo slėnį, kur dabar yra Druskos jūra.

4 Dvylika metų jie tarnavo Kedorlaomeriui, o tryliktaisiais metais sukilo.

5 Keturioliktaisiais metais atėjo Kedorlaomeris ir jo sąjungininkai. Jie sumušė refajus Aštarot Karnaime, zūzus Hame, emus Šave Kirjataimo lygumoje

6 ir horus Seyro kalne iki El Parano, kuris siekia dykumą.

7 Paskui jie atėjo į En Mišpatą, tai yra Kadešą, ir nusiaubė visą amalekiečių kraštą ir amoritus, kurie gyveno Hacecon Tamaroje.

8 Tada išėjo Sodomos, Gomoros, Admos, Ceboimo ir Belos karaliai ir išsirikiavo kovai Sidimo slėnyje:

9 prieš Elamo karalių Kedorlaomerį, Goimo karalių Tidalą, Šinaro karalių Amrafelį ir Elasaro karalių Arjochą­keturi karaliai prieš penkis.

10 Sidimo slėnis buvo pilnas dervos duobių. Bėgdami Sodomos ir Gomoros karaliai įkrito į jas, o likusieji pabėgo į kalnus.

11 Laimėtojai, pasigrobę visą Sodomos bei Gomoros turtą ir visas atsargas, nuėjo.

12 Jie taip pat paėmė Abromo brolio sūnų Lotą, kuris gyveno Sodomoje, ir jo turtą.

13 Vienas iš pabėgusiųjų atėjęs pranešė tai Abromui, hebrajui, gyvenančiam amorito Mamrės ąžuolyne; Mamrė ir jo broliai Eškolas ir Aneras buvo Abromo sąjungininkai.

14 Abromas išgirdęs, kad jo brolio sūnus buvo išvestas į nelaisvę, apginklavo tris šimtus aštuoniolika savo išlavintų tarnų, gimusių jo namuose, ir vijosi priešą iki Dano.

15 Jis, padalinęs savo būrį, užpuolė juos nakčia, sumušė ir vijosi juos ligi Hobos, kuri yra į kairę nuo Damasko,

16 ir atsiėmė jų pagrobtą turtą, Lotą ir jo turtą, moteris ir žmones.

17 Kai Abromas sugrįžo, nugalėjęs Kedorlaomerį ir karalius, kurie buvo su juo, Sodomos karalius išėjo jo pasitikti į Šavės slėnį­Karaliaus slėnį.

18 Melchizedekas, Salemo karalius, atnešė duonos ir vyno. Jis buvo aukščiausiojo Dievo kunigas.

19 Jis laimino jį, sakydamas: “Tebūna Abromas palaimintas aukščiausiojo Dievo, dangaus ir žemės valdovo!

20 Tebūna šlovinamas aukščiausiasis Dievas, kuris atidavė tavo priešus į tavo rankas!” Ir Abromas davė jam dešimtinę nuo visko.

21 Sodomos karalius tarė Abromui: “Atiduok man žmones, o turtą pasilaikyk!”

22 Bet Abromas tarė Sodomos karaliui: “Aš, pakėlęs ranką, prisiekiu aukščiausiuoju Dievu, dangaus ir žemės valdovu:

23 nei siūlo galo, nei kurpių dirželio, nei ko nors kito, kas tau priklauso, aš neimsiu, kad nesakytum: ‘Aš padariau Abromą turtingą!’

24 Aš nieko neimsiu, išskyrus tai, ką suvalgė jaunuoliai ir kas priklauso vyrams: Anerui, Eškolui ir Mamrei, kurie ėjo su manimi. Jie tepasiima savo dalį”.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1673

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1673. 'And they smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim' means false persuasions or the hells of such persuasions which the Lord overcame. This is clear from the meaning of the Rephaim, the Zuzim, and the Emim, as those of a similar kind to the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4 - the Nephilim, as was shown more than adequately at that verse, meaning false persuasions or those people who because they were persuaded of their own superiority and pre-eminence regarded all things that were holy and true as worthless, and who plunged falsities into evil desires, see 581 - and from the following places quoted in that paragraph, Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 2:10; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14, 19; Psalms 88:10. Here it is the different kinds of false persuasions that are meant by these three, and also by 'the Horites in Mount Seir', for there are many kinds of false persuasions, each kind varying not only according to the falsities but also according to the evil desires to which those falsities are allied or into which they are plunged, or from which they stem and are produced. The nature of such false persuasions cannot possibly become clear to anyone who knows scarcely anything more about false persuasion or evil desire than that such things exist; but in the next life they are arranged quite distinctly and separately into their own genera and their own species.

[2] Among those who lived before the Flood, especially among those called the Nephilim, most dreadful false persuasions existed. The Nephilim were such that in the next life by their persuasions they deprive other spirits they encounter of their whole ability to think. As a result it seems to those spirits as though they are scarcely alive, let alone capable of thinking anything true. For in the next life, as has been shown, there is a communication of the thoughts of all; and therefore when persuasiveness such as this flows in, it inevitably kills so to speak all power to think that the others have. Such were the unspeakably horrible nations against whom the Lord fought in earliest childhood and whom He overcame. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had overcome them, nobody at all would be alive today on this planet, for everyone is governed by the Lord through spirits. Today those same people, on account of their delusions, are hemmed in all round by what looks like a misty rock, out of which they are constantly endeavouring to rise up, though to no avail - see 1265-1272, and in many places before that. They and their like are also the people meant by Isaiah,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To the end that You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

[3] And in David,

Will you work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

'The dead' here is not used to mean the dead but the condemned. At the present day too, especially from the Christian world, there are people who in a similar way have persuasions, but not of so dreadful a nature as those possessed by people before the Flood. False persuasions which occupy both the will and the understanding parts of man's mind - as did the persuasions of those before the Flood, and of those meant by the Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim - are of one kind. But false persuasions that occupy only the understanding part, having their origin in false assumptions confirmed within oneself, are of another kind. The latter kind are not so powerful as the former, nor so deadly, but they nevertheless cause much annoyance to the other spirits in the next life, partially taking away from them their capacity to think. Spirits such as these arouse in man outright confirmations of falsity, so that a person inevitably sees falsity as truth, and evil as good. It is their sphere which is of such a nature. As soon as any truth is called forth by angels those spirits smother and extinguish it.

[4] A person can discover whether such spirits govern him by merely considering whether he thinks the truths of the Word to be falsities and confirms himself in this so that he is not able to see otherwise. He can in that case be quite sure that such spirits reside with him and have dominion. It is similar with those who persuade themselves that all private gain is the common good, and who imagine that nothing contributes to the common good if it is not to their own private gain. Evil spirits residing with such a person supply so many confirmations that he does not see otherwise. Such people as regard all private gain as the common good, or who disguise it with the appearance of its being the common good, in the next life act in much the same way with regard to the common good there. That this is the nature of the influx of the spirits residing with man I have been given to know to the life from uninterrupted experience.

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