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Genesis第19章

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1 And at nightfall the two angels came to Sodom; and Lot was seated at the way into the town: and when he saw them he got up and came before them, falling down on his face to the earth.

2 And he said, My masters, come now into your servant's house and take your rest there for the night, and let your feet be washed; and early in the morning you may go on your way. And they said, Not so, but we will take our night's rest in the street.

3 But he made his request more strongly, so they went with him into his house; and he got food ready for them, and made unleavened bread, of which they took.

4 But before they had gone to bed, the men of the town, all the men of Sodom, came round the house, young and old, from every part of the town;

5 And crying out to Lot, they said, Where are the men who came to your house this night? Send them out to us, so that we may take our pleasure with them.

6 And Lot went out to them in the doorway, shutting the door after him.

7 And he said, My brothers, do not this evil.

8 See now, I have two unmarried daughters; I will send them out to you so that you may do to them whatever seems good to you: only do nothing to these men, for this is why they have come under the shade of my roof.

9 And they said, Give way there. This one man, they said, came here from a strange country, and will he now be our judge? now we will do worse to you than to them; and pushing violently against Lot, they came near to get the door broken in.

10 But the men put out their hands and took Lot into the house to them, shutting the door again.

11 But the men who were outside the door they made blind, all of them, small and great, so that they were tired out with looking for the door.

12 Then the men said to Lot, Are there any others of your family here? sons-in-law or sons or daughters, take them all out of this place;

13 For we are about to send destruction on this place, because a great outcry against them has come to the ears of the Lord; and the Lord has sent us to put an end to the town.

14 And Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were married to his daughters, Come, let us go out of this place, for the Lord is about to send destruction on the town. But his sons-in-law did not take him seriously.

15 And when morning came, the angels did all in their power to make Lot go, saying, Get up quickly and take your wife and your two daughters who are here, and go, for fear that you come to destruction in the punishment of the town.

16 But while he was waiting, the men took him and his wife and his daughters by the hand, for the Lord had mercy on them, and put them outside the town.

17 And when they had put them out, he said, Go for your life, without looking back or waiting in the lowland; go quickly to the mountain or you will come to destruction.

18 And Lot said to them, Not so, O my Lord;

19 See now, your servant has had grace in your eyes and great is your mercy in keeping my life from destruction, but I am not able to get as far as the mountain before evil overtakes me and death;

20 This town, now, is near, and it is a little one: O, let me go there (is it not a little one?) so that my life may be safe.

21 And he said, See, I have given you your request in this one thing more: I will not send destruction on this town.

22 Go there quickly, for I am not able to do anything till you have come there. For this reason, the town was named Zoar.

23 The sun was up when Lot came to Zoar.

24 Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

25 And he sent destruction on those towns, with all the lowland and all the people of those towns and every green thing in the land.

26 But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.

27 And Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had been talking with the Lord:

28 And looking in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the lowland, he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of an oven.

29 So it came about that when God sent destruction on the towns of the lowland, he kept his word to Abraham, and sent Lot safely away when he put an end to the towns where he was living.

30 Then Lot went up out of Zoar to the mountain, and was living there with his two daughters, for fear kept him from living in Zoar: and he and his daughters made their living-place in a hole in the rock.

31 And the older daughter said to her sister, Our father is old, and there is no man to be a husband to us in the natural way:

32 Come, let us give our father much wine, and we will go into his bed, so that we may have offspring by our father,

33 And that night they made their father take much wine; and the older daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.

34 And on the day after, the older daughter said to the younger, Last night I was with my father; let us make him take much wine this night again, and do you go to him, so that we may have offspring by our father.

35 And that night again they made their father take much wine; and the younger daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.

36 And so the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

37 And the older daughter had a son, and she gave him the name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38 And the younger had a son and gave him the name Ben-ammi: from him come the children of Ammon to this day.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#2371

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2371. 'And they said, Did not this one come to sojourn' means people with different teaching and a different life. This is clear from the meaning of 'sojourning' as receiving instruction and living, and so as doctrine and life, dealt with in 1463, 2025. Here the nature of the state of the Church around the last times is described, when faith is no more because charity is no more, that is to say, when the good of charity is rejected on doctrinal grounds as well, because it has severed all connection with life.

[2] The people described here are not those who falsify the good of charity by explaining things to their own advantage. They are not those who, so that they may be very great and may possess all the world's goods, make the good of charity the earner of merit. Nor are they those who assume the right to dispense rewards, and in so doing defile the good of charity by various devices and misleading means. Instead the subject is those who do not wish to hear anything about the goods of charity, that is, about good works, only about faith separated from those works. And this they wish to hear from the argument that man has nothing but evil within him and that even the good which springs from himself is in itself evil, and so contains nothing of salvation; and from the argument that no one can merit heaven by means of any good, nor accordingly be saved by it, only by means of a faith whereby they acknowledge the Lord's merit. This is the teaching which flourishes in the last times when the Church starts to breathe its last, and which is enthusiastically taught and favourably accepted.

[3] But to maintain from all this that anyone can lead an evil life and at the same time possess a faith that is good is a false conclusion. It is also a false conclusion to say that because man has nothing but evil within him, good from the Lord - which has heaven within it because it has the Lord within it, and blessedness and happiness within it because heaven is within it - cannot exist there. Finally it is a false conclusion to say that because nobody can merit [heaven] by any good, heavenly good from the Lord in which [self-] merit is regarded as something monstrous has no existence. Such good exists with every angel, such good exists with every regenerate person, and such good exists with those who perceive delight, and indeed blessedness, in good itself, that is, in the affection for it. The Lord speaks of this good or charity in the following way in Matthew,

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. [But] I say to you, Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who hurt and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? And if you salute only your brothers, what more are you doing [than others]? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? Matthew 5:43-48

Similar words occur in Luke, with this addition,

Do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. Luke 6:27-36.

[4] Here good which is derived from the Lord is described and the fact that it does not carry any thought of repayment. Consequently people who are governed by that good are called 'sons of the Father who is in heaven', and 'sons of the Most High'. Yet because that good has the Lord within it there is also a reward: in Luke,

When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest perhaps they invite you back in return, and you are repaid. But when you give a feast invite the poor, the maimed, the blind, and you will be blessed, for they have nothing with which to repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. 1 Luke 14:12-14.

'Dinner', 'supper', or 'feast' means the good that flows from charity, in which the Lord dwells together with man, 2341. Here it is described therefore, and it is plainly evident, that recompense lies within good itself since this has the Lord within it, for it is said that 'you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just'.

[5] People who strive to do good from themselves because the Lord has commanded it to be done are the ones who at length receive this good and who after receiving instruction then acknowledge in faith that all good comes from the Lord, 1712, 1937, 1947. And they are now so opposed to self-merit that they are saddened by the mere thought of merit and perceive that blessedness and happiness with them is that much diminished.

[6] It is quite different in the case of those who fail to do good and instead lead an evil life, while teaching and professing that salvation resides in faith separated from charity. These people are not even aware of the possibility of such good. And what is remarkable the same people in the next life, as I have been given to know from much experience, wish to merit heaven on the basis of all the good deeds they recall their having done, for they are now aware for the first time that no salvation lies in faith separated from charity. But these are the ones whom the Lord refers to in Matthew,

They will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Your name, and by Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many mighty works? But then will I declare to them, I do not know you; depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. Matthew 7:22-23.

With these people it is also seen that they had paid no attention at all to any one of the things which the Lord Himself taught so many times about the good that flows from love and charity. Instead those things had been to them like clouds sailing by or like things seen in the night, such as the things recorded in:

Matthew 3:8-9; 5:7-48; 6:1-20; 7:16-20, 24-27; 9:13; 12:33; 13:8, 23; 18:21-end; 19:19; 22:35-40; 24:12-13; 25:34-end;

Mark 4:18-20; 11:13-14, 20; 12:28-35;

Luke 3:8-9
; 6:27-39, 43-end; 7:47; 8:8, 14-15; 10:25-28; 12:58-59; 13:6-10;

John 3:19, 21; 5:42; 13:34-35; 14:14-15, 20-21, 23; 15:1-8, 9-19; 21:15-17.

These then, and other things like them, are what were meant by the words 'the men of Sodom' - that is, those immersed in evil, 2220, 2246, 2322 - 'saying to Lot, Did not this one come to sojourn, and will he surely judge?' that is, Will people with different teaching and a different life teach us?

脚注:

1. The Latin means the dead; but the Greek means the just, which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.

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