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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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Arcana Coelestia #2016

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2016. As regards the fact that all good and the derivative truth are from the Lord: this is a constant verity. The angels are in the perception of it to such a degree that they perceive that insofar as anything is from the Lord, it is good and true, and that insofar as it is from themselves, it is evil and false. They also confess this before novitiate souls, and before spirits who are in doubt of it, nay, they go so far as to say that it is by the Lord that they are withheld from the evil and falsity that come from what is their own, and are kept in good and truth. Moreover the very withholding and the very influx are perceptible to them (see n. 1614). But as to man’s supposing that he does good from himself and thinks truth from himself, this is an appearance, because he is in a state of no perception, and in a state of the greatest obscurity in respect to influx; and therefore he infers this from the appearance, nay, from the fallacy, from which he by no means suffers himself to be withdrawn so long as he has belief in nothing but the senses, and so long as he reasons from them whether it be so. But although the case is as stated, man nevertheless ought to do good and to think truth as from himself; for in no other way can he be reformed and regenerated (the reason of which may be seen above, n. 1937, 1947).

[2] The verse now before us treats of the Lord’s Human Essence that was to be united to the Divine Essence; and that all good and truth would thereby come to man from His Divine Essence through His Human Essence, is a Divine arcanum which few believe, because they do not apprehend it, for they suppose that the Divine good is able to reach to man without the Lord’s Human united to the Divine; but that this cannot be done, has been already shown in a few words (n. 1676, 1990), to this effect, that man has removed himself so far from the Supreme Divine, by the cupidities in which he has immersed himself and by the falsities with which he has blinded himself, that there could not possibly be any influx of the Divine into the rational part of his mind except through the Human which the Lord united in Himself to the Divine. Through His Human, communication has been effected; for thereby the Supreme Divine has been able to come to man. This the Lord says openly in many places, for He says that He is “the way,” and that “no one cometh to the Father but by Him.” This then is what is here affirmed: that from Him, namely, from the Human united to the Divine, is all good and all truth.

  
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Arcana Coelestia #9093

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9093. 'And divide the silver from it' means that its truth will be dispersed. This is clear from the meaning of 'dividing' as banishing and dispersing, dealt with in 6360, 6361; and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2048, 5658, 6112, 6914, 6917, 7999. The reason why 'dividing' means dispersing is that if things existing in association are divided they are also scattered, as when a person destroys his mind by dividing it. For the human mind consists of two parts existing in association; one part is called the understanding, the other part is called the will. A person who divides these two parts scatters what belongs to each part individually; for one part must receive its life from the other, and therefore when one perishes, so does the other. It is similar when someone divides truth from good, or what amounts to the same thing, faith from charity; when anyone does this he destroys both. In short, all the things which ought to be a single whole perish if they are divided.

[2] This division is meant by the Lord's words in Luke,

No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will prefer the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Luke 16:13.

That is, it is not possible to serve the Lord through belief in Him and at the same time serve the world by loving it, thus to acknowledge truth and at the same time to do evil. Anyone who behaves in this way has his mind divided, as a result of which it is destroyed. From all this it is evident why it is that 'dividing' means dispersing; and the same is clearly the meaning in Matthew also,

The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour he does not know. And he will divide him and assign him his part with the hypocrites. Matthew 24:50-51.

'Dividing' here means separating and removing from forms of good and truths, 4424, thus dispersing them.

[3] In Moses,

Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is hard. 1 I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:7.

These words occur in Israel's prophetic utterance regarding Simeon and Levi. 'Simeon' and 'Levi' here represent those steeped in faith separated from charity, 6352; and 'Jacob' and 'Israel' represent the external and the internal Church, also the external and the internal man, 4286, 4598, 5973, 6360, 6361. 'Dividing them in Jacob' means banishing them from the external Church, and 'scattering them in Israel' from the internal Church, thus dispersing the Church's forms of good and its truths residing with them.

[4] It is also evident that 'dividing' has this meaning from the words written on the wall when Belshazzar king of Babel, together with his nobles, wives, and concubines, drank wine out of the vessels of gold and of silver that had belonged to the Temple in Jerusalem, Daniel 5:2-4, 25, 28. What was written said, 'Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided,' 'divided' here meaning separated from the kingdom. Those verses show how all things at that time were representative. They describe the profanation of goodness and truth, which is meant by 'Babel'. Profanation is meant by 'Babel', see 1182, 1283, 1295, 1304-1308, 1321, 1322, 1326. Forms of the good of love, also the truths of faith, received from the Lord, are meant by 'the vessels of gold and silver', 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917. Profanation is meant by drinking out of them, and by praising then the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone (as verse 4 says there), which are a string of evils and falsities, 4402 (end), 4544, 7873, 8941. 'The Temple in Jerusalem' from which the vessels had come means in the highest sense the Lord, and in the representative sense His kingdom and Church, 3720. Belshazzar's kingdom when it had been divided was a sign of the dispersion of goodness and truth, and his being killed that very night a sign of deprivation of the life of truth and good, which is damnation. For 'being divided' is being dispersed; 'king' is the truth of good, 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, 4966, 5044, 5068, 6148, the same thing being meant by 'kingdom', 1672, 2547, 4691; 'being killed' means being deprived of the life of truth and good, 3607, 6767, 8902; and 'the night' in which he was killed is a state of evil and falsity, 2353, 7776, 7851, 7870, 7947. From this it is evident that all things there were representative.

[5] It says in David,

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing cast lots. Psalms 22:18.

And in Matthew,

They divided the garments (the Lord's), casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophet. Matthew 27:35.

Also in John,

The soldiers took the garments and made four parts; and the tunic. The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said regarding it Let us not divide it, but cast lots for it, whose it may be - so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. John 19:23-24.

The person who reads these things, knowing nothing about the internal sense of the Word, is unaware of any arcanum that lies concealed within them, when in fact every detail holds a Divine arcanum. The arcanum was that Divine Truths had been dispersed by the Jews. For the Lord was Divine Truth, which is why He is called the Word in John 1:1 and the following verses, 'the Word' being Divine Truth. His garments represented truths in the outward form they take, His tunic truths in their inward form; and the dividing of the garments represented the dispersing of the truths of faith by the Jews. For the meaning of 'garments' as truths in the outward form they take, see 2576, 5248, 5954, 6918, and for that of 'tunic' as truth in its inward form, 4677. Truths in their outward form are truths as they exist in the literal sense of the Word, but truths in their inward form are truths as they exist in the spiritual sense of the Word. 'Dividing the garments into four parts' meant total dispersion, in the same way that dividing does in Zechariah 14:4, and elsewhere. Dividing into two parts - as it says in Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38, regarding the veil of the Temple - has a like meaning. The splitting apart of the rocks also at that time, Matthew 27:51, represented the dispersing of all matters of faith; for 'rock' means the Lord in respect of faith, and therefore means faith received from the Lord, 8581.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. cruel

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