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Exodus 4

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1 And Moses answered and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken to my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared to thee.

2 And the LORD said to him, What is that in thy hand? And he said, A rod.

3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent: and Moses fled from before it.

4 And the LORD said to Moses, Put forth thy hand, and take it by the tail. And he Put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand:

5 That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee.

6 And the LORD said furthermore to him, Put now thy hand into thy bosom. And he Put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow.

7 And he said, Put thy hand into thy bosom again. And he Put his hand into his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.

8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken to thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.

10 And Moses said to the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoke to thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

11 And the LORD said to him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD.

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

13 And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.

14 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.

15 And thou shalt speak to him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.

16 And he shall speak for thee to the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

17 And thou shalt take this rod in thy hand, with which thou shalt perform signs.

18 And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see whether they are yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, go in peace.

19 And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt; for all the men are dead who sought thy life.

20 And Moses took his wife, and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

21 And the LORD said to Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou perform all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

22 And thou shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my first-born.

23 And I say to thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou shalt refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first-born.

24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

27 And the LORD said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him.

29 And Moses and Aaron went, and assembled all the elders of the children of Israel:

30 And Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the people.

31 And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads, and worshiped.

   

Comentário

 

Cut off, to be

  

In Daniel 9:26, this signifies that divine truth shall be taken from the people, but will live again in a new church. (Apocalypse Explained 315[23])

In Genesis 17:14, this signifies eternal death. (Arcana Coelestia 2058)

In Exodus 23:23, this signifies that hell is removed solely through the protection of heaven by the Lord. (Arcana Coelestia 9316) To be cut off, as in Genesis 41:36, signifies to perish.

(Referências: Arcana Coelestia 5302, Genesis 41)

Das Obras de Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia # 5302

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5302. 'And the land will not be cut off in the famine' means lest the person perishes - through an absence of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'being cut off' as perishing, and from the meaning of 'the land', in this case the land of Egypt, as the natural mind, dealt with immediately above in 5301; and because it is the natural mind, it is the person's true self, since a human being is a human being by virtue of his mind, it being the actual mind itself that constitutes a person, and the kind of mind he has that determines what kind of a person he is. By the mind is meant a person's understanding and will, consequently his essential life. People who are stupid imagine that a human being is a human being by virtue of his outward appearance, that is to say, because he possesses a human face. Others who are a little less stupid say that the human being is a human being because he has the ability to speak, while others again who are less stupid still say that the human being is a human being because he has the ability to think. But a human being is not a human being for any of these reasons but because he has the capacity to think what is true and to will what is good; and when he thinks what is true and wills what is good he has the capacity to behold what is Divine and, perceiving what it is, to accept it.

[2] This is what distinguishes a human being from animals. Not merely his human appearance, or his ability to speak, or his ability to think make him a human being; for if he thinks what is false and wills what is evil, that makes him not only like but worse than an animal. For he then uses those abilities to destroy what is human within himself and to make a wild animal of himself. This is particularly evident from people of this kind in the next life, for when they are seen in the light of heaven, and also when angels see them, they look at that moment like monsters, and some of them like wild animals. The deceitful look like snakes, and others like something different again. But when they are taken away from the light of heaven and are returned to their own inferior light which they have in hell, they look to one another like human beings. But the implications of all this - of the fact that a person will perish in times when truth is absent if he has no forms of good and truth stored away by the Lord in the interior parts of his mind, meant by 'food kept as a reserve for the land, for the seven years of famine, so that the land is not cut off in the famine' - will be stated in the sections that follow next in the present chapter.

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