圣经文本

 

Exodus第2章

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1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

4 And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him.

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it.

6 And she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maiden went and called the child's mother.

9 And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.

10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.

11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

12 And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

13 And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?

14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely the thing is known.

15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.

16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

17 And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.

18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to-day?

19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock.

20 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.

21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

22 And she bare a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

23 And it came to pass in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25 And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge [of them].

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#6724

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6724. 'And coated it with bitumen and pitch' means good mingled with evils and falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'bitumen' as good mingled with evils; and from the meaning of 'pitch' as good mingled with falsities. 'Bitumen and 'pitch' have these meanings because they are inflammable, and in the Word that which is inflammable means good, or in the contrary sense evil. But because they have brimstone or sulphur in them and are also black they mean evil and falsity, as in Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah's vengeance - her streams will be turned into pitch, and her dust into brimstone, and her land will become burning pitch. Isaiah 34:8-9.

'Pitch' and 'brimstone' stand for falsities and evils. This then is why 'she coated it with bitumen and pitch' means good mingled with evils and falsities.

[2] As regards the actual matter under consideration here, which is that encircling God's truth there was good mingled with evils and falsities, no one can have any understanding unless he knows what goes on during the reformation of a person. While he is being reformed he is, so far as his internal is concerned, preserved by the Lord in a state of goodness and truth; but so far as his external is concerned he is let into his evils and falsities. He is as a consequence among spirits from hell who are governed by such evils and falsities. These spirits flit around him, trying in every way to destroy him. But the goodness and truth that flow into him through his internal give him such protection that the spirits from hell cannot harm him in the slightest, the reason for this being that what acts at a more internal level is immensely superior in strength to that which acts at a more external level. For being purer what is more internal acts on every individual detail of what is more external, and in so doing it adjusts the external to answer its beck and call. But there must in that case be goodness and truth in the external in which influx from the internal can be firmly established. Good can then be among evils and falsities and yet remain safe from harm. Everyone who is being reformed is brought into this state, so that the evil desires and false ideas that govern him are removed and good desires and true ideas are implanted instead.

[3] Without knowledge of this arcanum no one can begin to know why Divine Truth residing with a person has around it forms of good mingled with evils and falsities, meant by the bitumen and pitch with which the little ark in which the infant had been put was coated. It should in addition be recognized that good can be mingled with evils and falsities, but they are not on that account joined together, since one shies away from the other and in keeping with a law of order they separate themselves from one another. For good belongs to heaven and evil and falsity to hell, and therefore just as heaven and hell have been separated, so also does every single thing from them separate itself.

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