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Arcana Coelestia #9373

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9373. Come up unto Jehovah. That this signifies conjunction with the Lord, is evident from the signification of “coming up,” as being to be raised toward interior things (see n. 3084, 4539, 4969, 5406, 5817, 6007), consequently also to be conjoined (n. 8760). That it denotes conjunction with the Lord, is because by “Jehovah” in the Word is meant the the Lord, (n. 1343, 1736, 1793, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5663, 6280, 6303, 6905, 8274, 8864, 9315). A secret which also lies hidden in the internal sense of these words, is that the sons of Jacob, over whom Moses was the head, were not called and chosen; but they themselves insisted that Divine worship should be instituted among them (according to wh at has been said in n. 4290, 4293); and therefore it is here said, “and He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah,” as if not Jehovah, but another, had said that he should come up. For the same reason in what follows it is said that “the people should not go up” (verse 2); and that “Jehovah sent not His hand unto the sons of Israel who were set apart” (verse 11); and that “the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the sons of Israel” (verse 17); and lastly that Moses, being called the seventh day, “entered into the midst of the cloud.” For by “the cloud” is meant the Word in the letter (n. 5922, 6343, 6752, 6832, 8106, 8443, 8781); and with the sons of Jacob the Word was separated from its internal sense, because they were in external worship without internal, as can be clearly seen from the fact that now, as before, they said, “all the words which Jehovah hath spoken we will do” (verse 3); and yet scarcely forty days afterward they worshiped a golden calf instead of Jehovah; which shows that this was hidden in their hearts while they were saying with their lips that they would serve Jehovah alone. But nevertheless those who are meant by “the called and the chosen” are those who are in internal worship, and who from internal worship are in external; that is, those who are in love to and faith in the Lord, and from this in love toward the neighbor.

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

The Bible

 

Genesis 18:24

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24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?

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Arcana Coelestia #28

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28. Verse 10. And God called the dry [land] earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He seas; and God saw that it was good. It is a very common thing in the Word for “waters” to signify knowledges [cognitiones et scientifica], and consequently for “seas” to signify a collection of knowledges. As in Isaiah:

The earth shall be full of the knowledge [scientia] of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9).

And in the same Prophet, where a lack of knowledges [cognitionum et scientificorum] is treated of:

The waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be dried up and become utterly dry, and the streams shall recede (Isaiah 19:5-6).

In Haggai, speaking of a new church:

I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry [land]; and I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory (Haggai 2:6-7).

And concerning man in the process of regeneration, in Zechariah:

There shall be one day, it is known to Jehovah; not day, nor night; but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light; and it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, part of them toward the eastern sea, and part of them toward the hinder sea (Zechariah 14:7-8).David also, describing a vastated man who is to be regenerated and who will worship the Lord:

Jehovah despiseth not His prisoners; let the heavens and the earth praise Him, the seas and everything that creepeth therein (Psalms 69:33-34).

That the “earth” signifies a recipient, appears from Zechariah:

Jehovah stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man in the midst of him (Zechariah 12:1).

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