Arcana Coelestia#2276
2276. 'Perhaps thirty will be found [there]' means some existence of conflict. This is clear from the meaning of the number 'thirty'. The reason 'thirty' means some existence of conflict, thus a small amount of conflict, is that this number is the product of 'five', meaning that which is small, times 'six', meaning toil or conflict, as shown in Volume One, in 649, 720, 737, 900, 1709.
[2] Hence also that number, wherever one reads it in the Word, means something relatively small, as in Zechariah,
I said to them, If it is good in your eyes, give me my wages; and if not, withhold them. And they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver. And Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the magnificent price I was valued at among them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of Jehovah, to the potter. Zechariah 11:12-13.
This stands for how small a value those people placed on the Lord's merit, and on redemption and salvation from Him. 'The poster' stands for reformation and regeneration.
[3] This explains the reference to the same thirty pieces of silver in Matthew,
They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him whom they had bought from the children of Israel, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me. Matthew 27:9-10.
From these words it is quite clear that 'thirty' here stands for the small price set on him. A slave, who was not considered to be worth much, was valued at thirty shekels, as is clear in Moses,
If the ox gores a slave or a servant-girl, the owner shall give to his master thirty shekels of silver; and the ox shall be stoned. Exodus 21:32.
How little a slave was considered to be worth is clear from verses 20-21, of that same chapter. In the internal sense 'a slave' stands for toil.
[4] The reason Levites were called upon for ministerial duty - which is described as one 'coming to perform military service and to do the work in the tent [of meeting] - from thirty up to fifty years of age', Numbers 4:3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 43, was that 'thirty' means those who were beginners, thus those who as yet could perform little of what was meant in the spiritual sense by 'military service'.
[5] There are other places in the Word besides these where 'thirty' is mentioned, such as in the requirement that with a young bull a minchah of three tenths [of fine flour] was to be offered by them, Numbers 15:9. Such was required because the sacrifice of an ox represented natural good, as shown above in 2180, and natural good is small in comparison with spiritual good, which was represented by the sacrifice of a ram, and smaller still in comparison with celestial good, which was represented by the sacrifice of a lamb, with which sacrifices a different number of tenths to the minchah were required, as is clear in verses 4-6 of that chapter, and also in Numbers 28:12-13, 20-21, 28-29; 29:3-4, 9-10, 14-15. These differing numbers of tenths, or proportions, would never have been commanded if they had not embodied heavenly arcana within them.
[6] 'Thirty' again stands for that which is small in Mark,
The seed which fell into good ground yielded fruit, growing up and increasing. One bore thirty-fold, and another sixty, and another a hundred. Mark 4:8.
'Thirty' stands for a small yield and for that which has laboured to only a small extent. Those numbers would not have been specified unless they had embodied the things meant by them.
Genesis第19章
1
The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,
2
and he said, "See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night."
3
He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4
But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.
5
They called to Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them."
6
Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him.
7
He said, "Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly.
8
See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof."
9
They said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!" They pressed hard on the man Lot, and drew near to break the door.
10
But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.
11
They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
12
The men said to Lot, "Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:
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for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."
14
Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.
15
When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, "Get up! Take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."
16
But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city.
17
It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!"
18
Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, my lord.
19
See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.
20
See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."
21
He said to him, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
22
Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23
The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
24
Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.
25
He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.
26
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27
Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.
28
He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
29
It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
30
Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.
31
The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth.
32
Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."
33
They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.
34
It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."
35
They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she got up.
36
Thus both of Lot's daughters were with child by their father.
37
The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.
38
The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.
