8859. Exodus 20

1. And God spoke all these words, saying,

2. I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.

3. You shall not have other gods before My face.

4. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness [of things] which are in the heavens above, and which are on the earth beneath, and which are in the waters under the earth.

5. You shall not bow down to them, and you shall not serve them; for I am Jehovah your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the sons, ¹ on the third and on the fourth [generations] of those who hate Me,

6. And showing mercy to thousands who love Me and keep My commandments.

7. You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain; for Jehovah will not render him innocent who takes His name in vain.

8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9. Six days you shall labour and do all your work;

10. And the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You shall not do any work - you, nor your son, nor your daughter; your male slave, nor your female slave, nor your beast, nor your sojourner who is within your gates.

11. For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and sanctified it.

12. Honour your father and your mother, in order that your days may be prolonged on the land which Jehovah your God gives you.

13. ² You shall not kill.

14. You shall not commit adultery.

15. You shall not steal.

16. You shall not answer as witness of a lie against your neighbour.

17. You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male slave nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbour's.

18. And all the people saw the voices and torches, ³ and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and the people saw and were violently shaken, and stood afar off.

19. And they said to Moses, Speak yourself to us, and we will hear; and do not let God speak to us, lest perhaps we die.

20. And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come in order to test you, and in order that His fear may be before your faces, so that you do not sin.

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

22. And Jehovah said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven.

23. You shall not make [to be] with Me gods of silver and gods of gold; you shall not make [them] for yourselves.

24. An altar of soil ⁴ you shall make for Me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your eucharistic offerings, your flocks and your herds; in every place where I shall put the memory of My name I will come to you and bless you.

25. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, you shall not build it with hewn ones; for if you move your chisel over it you will profane it.

26. And you shall not go up to My altar by steps, in order that your nakedness may not be revealed on it.

CONTENTS

This chapter deals in the internal sense with God's truths that are to be implanted in the good which governs those belonging to the Lord's spiritual Church. The Ten Commandments are those truths; and the commandments that follow them in this chapter, regarding sacrifices and the altar, are outward truths concerned with worship.

Footnotes:

35. Since the Churches in the Christian world, both the Roman Catholic Church and those separated from it, which are named after their leaders, Luther, Melancthon and Calvin, trace all sin from Adam and his transgression, it is permissible to subjoin here something about the sources whence evils are inherited; for these sources are as many as there are fathers and mothers in the world. That inclinations, aptitudes and propensities to various evils are derived from these, is clear as daylight from the testimony of experience, and also from the assent of reason. Who does not know, from the collective testimony of experience, that there is a general likeness of dispositions, and hence of manners and features, from parents in children and children's children, even to indefinite posterity? Who cannot thence infer that original sins are from them? The notion suggested to every one, when he looks at the countenances and manners of brothers and relatives in families, causes him to know and acknowledge this.

[2] What reason, then, is there for deducing the origin of all evils from Adam and his seed? Is there not equal reason for deducing it from parents? Does not the germ of these similarly propagate itself? To deduce the tendencies from which, and according to which, the spiritual forms of the minds of all men n the universe exist, from Adam's seed alone, would be exactly like deriving birds of every species from one egg, also beasts of very nature from one seed, and trees of every kind of fruit from one root. Is there not an infinite variety of men? one like a sheep, another like a wolf? one like a kid, another like a panther? one like a gentle cob harnessed to a carriage, another like an untamable wild ass before it? one like a playful calf, another like a voracious tiger? and so on. Whence has each his peculiar disposition but from his father and his mother? Why, then, from Adam? - by whom, however, is described in a representative type the first Church of this earth, as has been already shown? Would not this be like tracing from one stock, deeply hidden in the earth, a plantation of trees of every appearance and use, and from a single plant shrubs of every value? Would that not also be like extracting light from the obscurity of the ages and of histories, and like unravelling the thread of a riddle that is without an answer? Why not rather derive them from Noah,

Who walked with God (Gen. 6:9),

And

Whom God blessed (Gen. 9:1),

and from whom with his three sons alone surviving

The whole earth was overspread (Gen. 9:19)?

Would not the hereditary qualities of the generations from Adam be thus extirpated, as if drowned by a flood?

[3] But, my friend, I will lay bare the true source of sins. Every evil is conceived of the devil as a father and is born of atheistical faith as a mother; and, on the other hand, every good is conceived of the Lord as a father and is born, as of a mother, of saving faith in Him. The generations of all goods in their infinite varieties with men, are from no other origin than from the marriage of the Lord and the Church; and, on the contrary, the generations of all evils in their varieties with them, are from no other origin than from the union of the devil with the community of the profane. Who does not know, or may not know, that a man must be regenerated by the Lord, that is, be created anew, and that, so far as this takes place, so far he is in goods? Hence this follows: that, in so far as a man is unwilling to be generated anew, or created anew, so far he takes up and retains the evils implanted in him from his parents. This is what lies concealed in the first precept of the Decalogue:

I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hold Me in hatred, and showing mercy unto thousands who love Me and keep My commandments (Exod. 20:5-6; Deut. 5:9-10).