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Genesis 12:1-8 : To a land that I will show you

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1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew 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 unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and 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 substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

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

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

8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1561

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1561. 'And there Abram called on the name of Jehovah' means internal worship in that state. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling on the name of Jehovah', dealt with already in 440, 1455. The reason why here mention is also made of an altar and why, as likewise in verse 8 of the previous chapter, the phrase 'he called on the name of Jehovah' is used, is that they are similar states. They differ in that the latter compared with the former is a state of light. When cognitions are implanted in the former state, which has been described, they make it one of light. And when truth and good are joined by means of cognitions to the former celestial state, its activity is described by the words used here. Worship itself is nothing else than a particular activity that occurs because of the celestial within. The celestial itself can never exist without activity. Worship is the prime activity, for this is how the celestial expresses itself because it finds joy in it. All good springing from love and charity constitutes the essential activity itself.

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