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.

Fotnoter:

4539. 'Rise up, go up to Bethel' means concerning the Divine Natural, that is to say, the perception concerning this. This is clear from the meaning of 'rising up' as implying some kind of raising up, dealt with in 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171, 4103, here a raising up of the Natural towards the Divine; from the meaning of 'going up' as doing so towards aspects even more interior, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Bethel' as the Divine within the natural, that is, within the ultimate degree of order, dealt with in 4089. In the original language Bethel means the house of God, and since 'the house of God' is a place where the cognitions of good and truth exist, 'Bethel' accordingly means, in the proximate sense, those cognitions, as shown in 1453. But because interior degrees are enveloped by and terminate in the parts which constitute the ultimate degree of order where they come together and so to speak inhabit the same house, and because man's natural is the ultimate degree, enveloping interior ones, 'Bethel' or the house of God therefore means, strictly speaking, the Natural, 3729, 4089, and in particular the good there. For 'a house' in the internal sense means good, 2233, 2234, 3720, 3729. It is also within the natural or the ultimate degree of order that cognitions exist.

[2] The reason why 'going up' means a raising up towards more interior aspects is that things which are interior are spoken of as those that are higher, 2148, and therefore when the subject in the internal sense is an advance towards things that are more interior the expression 'going up' is used. Examples of this usage are, going up from Egypt to the land of Canaan; going up into the interior parts of the land of Canaan itself; going up from any part there to Jerusalem; and when in Jerusalem itself, going up to the house of God there. Going up from Egypt to the land of Canaan is referred to in Moses,

Pharaoh said to Joseph, Go up and bury your father. And Joseph went up. And there went up with him all Pharaoh's servants. And there went up with him chariot and horseman. Genesis 50:6-9.

And in the Book of Judges,

The angel of Jehovah went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I caused you to go up out of Egypt. Judges 2:1.

In the internal sense 'Egypt' means factual knowledge which helps people to have some conception of things belonging to the Lord's kingdom, while 'the land of Canaan' means the Lord's kingdom. And because facts are lower, or what amounts to the same, exterior, while things belonging to the Lord's kingdom are higher, or what amounts to the same, interior, the Word therefore speaks of 'going up' from Egypt to the land of Canaan, or - when travelling in the opposite direction - of 'going down' from the land of Canaan to Egypt, as in Genesis 42:2-3; 43:4-5, 15; and elsewhere.

[3] Going up into the interior parts of the land of Canaan itself is spoken of in Joshua,

Joshua said, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai, and they resumed to Joshua and said to him, Do not let all the people go up; let about 2000 men or about 3000 men go up. Therefore there went up of the people about 3000 men. Joshua 7:2-4.

Because 'the land of Canaan' means the Lord's kingdom, parts further in from its border regions meant things that are interior; hence the use in this quotation of the verb 'to go up'. The same is true of Jerusalem in relation to all the regions surrounding it, and of the house of God in relation to Jerusalem within which it stood, 1 Kings 12:27-28; 2 Kings 20:5, 8; Matthew 20:18; Mark 10:33; Luke 18:31; and in many other places besides these. For Jerusalem was the inmost part of the land because the Lord's spiritual kingdom was meant by it, and the house of God was the inmost part of Jerusalem because the Lord's celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself were meant by it. This is why one speaks of 'going up' to these places. From all this one can see what is meant by 'rise up, go up to Bethel', namely that 'going up' means an advance towards things that are more interior, the subject dealt with in the present chapter, [see] 4536.