The Bible

 

Genesis 12

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1 Now the LORD had said to Abram, Depart from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to a land that I will show thee:

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will 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 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed from Haran.

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

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

7 And the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, To thy seed will I give this land: and there he erected an altar to the LORD, who appeared to him.

8 And he removed from thence to a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he erected an altar to the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

9 And Abram journeyed, going on still towards the south.

10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to dwell there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

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

12 Therefore it will come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they will say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

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

15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

16 And he treated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.

17 And the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues, because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

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

19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me for a wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

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

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1443

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1443. As regards “the oak-grove Moreh” being the first perception, the case is this. There are with man things intellectual, things rational, and things of memory [scientifica]; his inmost things are intellectual, his interior things are rational, and his exterior things are those of the memory [scientifica]; all these are called his spiritual things, which are in the order here given. The intellectual things of the celestial man are compared to a garden of trees of every kind; his rational things, to a forest of cedars and similar trees, such as there were in Lebanon; but his memory-knowledges [scientifica] are compared to oak-groves, and this from their intertwined branches such as are those of the oak. By trees themselves are signified perceptions; as by the trees of the garden of Eden eastward, inmost perceptions, or those of intellectual things (as before shown, n. 99, 100, 103) by the trees of the forest of Lebanon, interior perceptions, or those of rational things; but by the trees of an oak-grove, exterior perceptions, or those of memory-knowledges, which belong to the external man. Hence it is that “the oak-grove Moreh” signifies the Lord’s first perception; for He was as yet a child, and His spiritual things were not more interior than this. Besides, the oak-grove Moreh was where the sons of Israel also first came when they passed over the Jordan and saw the land of Canaan, concerning which in Moses:

Thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanite that dwelleth in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the oak-groves of Moreh (Deuteronomy 11:29-30);

by which also is signified the first of perception, for the entrance of the sons of Israel represents the entrance of the faithful into the Lord’s kingdom.

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