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Genesis第21章

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1 And the Lord came to Sarah as he had said and did to her as he had undertaken.

2 And Sarah became with child, and gave Abraham a son when he was old, at the time named by God.

3 And Abraham gave to his son, to whom Sarah had given birth, the name Isaac.

4 And when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham made him undergo circumcision, as God had said to him.

5 Now Abraham was a hundred years old when the birth of Isaac took place.

6 And Sarah said, God has given me cause for laughing, and everyone who has news of it will be laughing with me.

7 And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would have a child at her breast? for see, I have given him a son now when he is old.

8 And when the child was old enough to be taken from the breast, Abraham made a great feast.

9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with Isaac.

10 So she said to Abraham, Send away that woman and her son: for the son of that woman is not to have a part in the heritage with my son Isaac.

11 And this was a great grief to Abraham because of his son.

12 But God said, Let it not be a grief to you because of the boy and Hagar his mother; give ear to whatever Sarah says to you, because it is from Isaac that your seed will take its name.

13 And I will make a nation of the son of your servant-woman, because he is your seed.

14 And early in the morning Abraham got up, and gave Hagar some bread and a water-skin, and put the boy on her back, and sent her away: and she went, wandering in the waste land of Beer-sheba.

15 And when all the water in the skin was used up, she put the child down under a tree.

16 And she went some distance away, about an arrow flight, and seating herself on the earth, she gave way to bitter weeping, saying, Let me not see the death of my child.

17 And the boy's cry came to the ears of God; and the angel of God said to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, why are you weeping? have no fear, for the child's cry has come to the ears of God.

18 Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

19 Then God made her eyes open, and she saw a water-spring, and she got water in the skin and gave the boy a drink.

20 And God was with the boy, and he became tall and strong, and he became a bowman, living in the waste land.

21 And while he was in the waste land of Paran, his mother got him a wife from the land of Egypt.

22 Now at that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, said to Abraham, I see that God is with you in all you do.

23 Now, then, give me your oath, in the name of God, that you will not be false to me or to my sons after me, but that as I have been good to you, so you will be to me and to this land where you have been living.

24 And Abraham said, I will give you my oath.

25 But Abraham made a protest to Abimelech because of a water-hole which Abimelech's servants had taken by force.

26 But Abimelech said, I have no idea who has done this thing; you never gave me word of it, and I had no knowledge of it till this day.

27 And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement together.

28 And Abraham put seven young lambs of the flock on one side by themselves.

29 Then Abimelech said, What are these seven lambs which you have put on one side?

30 And he said, Take these seven lambs from me as a witness that I have made this water-hole.

31 So he gave that place the name Beer-sheba, because there the two of them had given their oaths.

32 So they made an agreement at Beer-sheba, and Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, went back to the land of the Philistines.

33 And Abraham, after planting a holy tree in Beer-sheba, gave worship to the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.

34 And Abraham went on living in the land of the Philistines as in a strange country.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#2632

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2632. 'Abraham circumcised his son Isaac' means purification of the rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'being circumcised' as being purified, dealt with in 2039, and from the representation of 'Isaac' as the Divine Rational, dealt with in 2630.

[2] The Lord's first rational was born in the way it is with others, that is to say, by means of facts and cognitions. This has been stated already where Ishmael, who represents that rational, is the subject. Because it was born, as with others, by means of facts and cognitions, thus by the external way, which is that of the senses, this rational inevitably included many things that were worldly in origin, for it is from those things that the ideas which the rational possesses are acquired. This was even more so the case with the Lord on account of the heredity He had from the mother. It was those worldly things and this heredity which the Lord gradually cast out of His rational until it was such that it was able to receive the Divine, 2624, 2625. At this point the Lord's Divine Rational, represented by 'Isaac', was born, 2630, not indeed by the external way, which is that of the senses - as was the case with the previous rational - but by the internal way from the Divine itself, 2628, 2629. As this was not accomplished all at once but gradually, 1690, 2033, the rational was purified, and constantly so. It is this purification that is meant by 'Abraham circumcised his son, a son eight days old'. That the Lord gradually made His Rational Divine and purified it constantly is clear also in John,

Jesus said, Father, glorify Your name. A voice therefore came from heaven, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. John 12:28.

'Glorifying' is making Divine, see 1603, 1999.

[3] In the Ancient Church nothing else was represented and meant by circumcision than that a person should be purified from self-love and love of the world, which is also effected gradually and constantly, see 2039, 2046 (end), 2049, 2056, especially when a person has been born anew or regenerated. For at that time the Lord is flowing in by the internal way, that is, through the good that forms part of conscience; and He gradually and constantly separates the things which cling to that person both as a result of hereditary evil and of the evil of his own doing.

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