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Exodus第3章

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1 And Moses tended the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock behind the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God -- to Horeb.

2 And the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a thorn-bush: and he looked, and behold, the thorn-bush burned with fire, and the thorn-bush was not being consumed.

3 And Moses said, Let me now turn aside and see this great sight, why the thorn-bush is not burnt.

4 And Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him out of the midst of the thorn-bush and said, Moses, Moses! And he said, Here am I.

5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: loose thy sandals from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

6 And he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look at God.

7 And Jehovah said, I have seen assuredly the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and their cry have I heard on account of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.

8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good and spacious land, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

9 And now behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me; and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

10 And now come, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

11 And Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

12 And he said, For I will be with thee; and this shall be the sign to thee that I have sent thee: when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

13 And Moses said to God, Behold, [when] I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

14 And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.

15 And God said moreover to Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, Jehovah the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, hath appeared to me, saying, I have indeed visited you, and [seen] that which is done unto you in Egypt;

17 and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

18 And they shall hearken to thy voice. And thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us; and now, let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our God.

19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a powerful hand.

20 And I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof; and after that he will let you go.

21 And I will give this people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, and it shall come to pass, when ye go out, that ye shall not go out empty;

22 but every woman shall ask of her neighbour, and of her that is the inmate of her house, utensils of silver, and utensils of gold, and clothing; and ye shall put [them] on your sons and on your daughters, and shall spoil the Egyptians.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#6849

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6849. 'For he was afraid to look at God' means for fear that they should suffer harm from the presence of the Divine itself. This is clear from the meaning of 'being afraid' as for fear that they, interior things, should suffer harm (for this was the reason for his fear); and from the meaning of 'looking at God' as the presence of the Divine itself. For the only way in which the Lord can make Himself present before a person is through the persons inner seeing, through seeing Him with the eye of faith that belongs to charity. If the Lord does manifest Himself in an outward visible form to someone, it is still the inner levels of mind that are affected, for the Divine reaches into the deepest parts of him. With regard to the meaning here, that interior things should not suffer harm from the presence of the Divine itself, and that therefore they were to be protected, the situation is this: The Divine itself is pure love, and pure love is like a fire hotter than the fire of the sun in this world. Consequently if Divine Love in its purity were to flow into any angel, spirit, or man, he would be completely destroyed, which is why so many times in the Word Jehovah or the Lord is called a consuming fire. To ensure therefore that the angels in heaven suffer no harm from the flow of heat from the Lord as the sun, each of them is veiled with a kind of thin cloud suited to the individual, which moderates the heat flowing in from that sun.

[2] The truth that without this form of preservation everyone would be destroyed by the presence of the Divine had been well known to the ancients, which was why they were afraid of seeing God, as is clear in the Book of Judges,

Gideon saw that he was the angel of Jehovah, therefore Gideon said, O Lord Jehovah! Inasmuch as I have seen the angel of Jehovah face to face. And Jehovah said to him, Peace be to you; do not fear, for you will not die. Judges 6:12, 23.

In the same book,

Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, for we have seen God. Judges 13:22.

And in the Book of Exodus,

Jehovah said to Moses, You cannot see My face, for no man will see My face and live. Exodus 33:20.

[3] When therefore Moses was allowed to see God, he was placed in a cleft of the rock, Exodus 33:22, which represented the dimness of his faith, and the clouds that hid and protected him. How dangerous it can be for angels to be beheld by the Divine without being covered by a cloud is made very clear by the fact that when angels look at any spirit who is governed by evil he seems to change into something resembling a lifeless object, as I have often been allowed to see. The reason why this happens is that when the angels look at someone there is cast in his direction the light and heat of heaven, and the truth of faith and the good of love with them, which - when these penetrate - virtually deprive the evil of life.

[4] If this is what happens when angels look at them, what would happen if the Lord did so? This explains why the hells are utterly remote from heaven, and why those who are there wish to be remote, for if they are not they suffer dreadful torment. This makes plain the meaning of the following words, They will say to the mountains and rocks, Rush down on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne. Revelation 6:16; Luke 23:30; Hosea 10:8.

[5] Thus the presence of the Divine itself is such that no angel can bear it unless he is protected by a cloud which tempers and moderates the rays of light and the heat from that sun. From this one may recognize plainly that the Lord's Human is Divine, for if it were not Divine it could never have become so united to the Divine itself, called the Father, that they are one, according to the Lord's words in John 14:10 and following verses, and elsewhere. For that which is to receive the Divine in this way must be wholly Divine; what was not Divine from such a union would be plainly reduced to nothing. Let me use a comparison. Can anything be thrown into the fire of the sun and not be destroyed, unless it is similar in nature to the sun? So, can anyone enter the intense heat of infinite love unless he has in him the heat of the same kind of love, consequently unless he is none other than the Lord? The truth that the Father is within Him and that the Father does not show Himself except within His Divine Human is clear from the Lord's words in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

And elsewhere in the same gospel,

You have never heard His voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

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