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Exodus第4章

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1 And Moses answered and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, Jehovah has not appeared to thee.

2 And Jehovah said to him, What is that in thy hand? And he said, A staff.

3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.

4 And Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out thy hand and take it by the tail -- and he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand --

5 that they may believe that Jehovah, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.

6 And Jehovah said moreover to him, Put now thy hand into thy bosom. And he Put his hand into his bosom, and took it out, and behold, his hand was leprous, as snow.

7 And he said, Put thy hand into thy bosom again. And he Put his hand into his bosom again, and took it out of his bosom, and behold, it was turned again as his flesh.

8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the other sign.

9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also those two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour [it] on the dry [land]; and the water that thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry [land].

10 And Moses said to Jehovah, Ah Lord! I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant, for I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue.

11 And Jehovah said to him, Who gave man a mouth? or who maketh dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? [have] not I, Jehovah?

12 And now go, and I will be with thy mouth, and will teach thee what thou shalt say.

13 And he said, Ah Lord! send, I pray thee, by the hand [of him whom] thou wilt send.

14 Then the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also behold, he goeth out to meet thee; and when he seeth thee he will be glad in his heart.

15 And thou shalt speak unto him, and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.

16 And he shall speak for thee unto the people; and it shall come to pass that he shall be to thee for a mouth, and thou shalt be to him for God.

17 And thou shalt take this staff in thy hand, with which thou shalt do the signs.

18 And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return to my brethren who are in Egypt, that I may see whether they are yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, go in peace.

19 And Jehovah said to Moses in Midian, Go, return to Egypt; for all the men are dead who sought thy life.

20 And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them riding upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

21 And Jehovah said to Moses, When thou goest to return to Egypt, see that thou do all the wonders before Pharaoh that I have put in thy hand. And I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

22 And thou shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus saith Jehovah: Israel is my son, my firstborn.

23 And I say to thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill thy son, thy firstborn.

24 And it came to pass on the way, in the inn, that Jehovah came upon him, and sought to slay him.

25 Then Zipporah took a stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, A bloody husband indeed art thou to me!

26 And he let him go. Then she said, A bloody husband -- because of the circumcision.

27 And Jehovah said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him on the mountain of God, and kissed him.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of Jehovah who had sent him, and all the signs that he had commanded him.

29 And Moses and Aaron went and gathered all the elders of the children of Israel;

30 and Aaron spoke all the words that Jehovah had spoken to Moses, and did the signs before the eyes of the people.

31 And the people believed. And when they heard that Jehovah had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#6971

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6971. 'And do not hear the voice of the former sign' means that if they did not obey what was declared by the Word, then instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing' as obeying, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 5017; from the meaning of 'the voice' as what is declared by the Word, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the former sign' as an indication that instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. The truth of this may be seen from the meaning of 'the serpent' that was made out of Moses' rod when it was thrown onto the earth - the event to which 'the first sign' refers here - as a person who thinks on a sensory and bodily level, 6949, and so is not spiritual or rational. For a person who is sensory- and bodily-minded is not rational, and so is not spiritual either, because he thinks things that are false and desires those that are evil. One who behaves like this is not rational, still less spiritual, for an acceptance of and belief in what is true, together with a life of goodness, since these two come from the Divine, constitute true spirituality within rationality, whereas an acceptance of and belief in what is false, together with a life of evil, are the opposite. For the fact that wholly sensory- and bodily-minded people are like this, see 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949.

[2] Those people become wholly sensory- and bodily-minded who have first had a knowledge of things that belong to the spiritual world but after that have rejected them, and then have adopted fundamental ideas of falsity that are contrary to truths and focused their lives solely on worldly, bodily, and earthly values. They have consequently come to believe that life is meant to be filled with pleasures of every kind, saying, 'What more does a person have while he is alive? When we die, we die; as for the possibility of life after death, has anyone ever come back to talk about it? We have no knowledge of anything that will go on living when the life goes out of a person.' If anyone using rational arguments induces those people to give any thought to eternal life, they think that nothing worse will happen to them than to anyone else, and they immediately go back to living in the way they had done previously. With such people the passageway for the light of heaven to flow in is closed, and at the natural level of their minds the light of heaven is turned into thick darkness, while the light of the world there becomes brightness, 6907, a brightness that shines ever more brilliantly, the more that the light of heaven is darkened. This is why such people do not see the evil in their lives as anything other than goodness, or consequently the false ideas as anything other than true. Here then is the reason why a person becomes sensory- and bodily-minded. In short, once the way is opened for the light of heaven to flow in and then closed, a person is impelled to look downwards, and not upwards. This is done in keeping with Divine order so as to prevent truths once accepted and remaining in a person's inner self from being contaminated by falsities and thereby rendered profane.

[3] The same applies to gentiles who fall away from their religion, though their lot is better than that of people within the Church since what they possess are not truths from the Word, not genuine truths therefore but truths coupled with many misconceptions, which cannot be profaned in the way genuine ones can.

As regards the meaning of 'the voice' as that which is declared by the Word, it should be recognized that frequent use is made of the expression 'the voice'. It is also linked to other things that have nothing to do with a voice, such as the linking of it here to 'the sign' - 'If they do not hear the voice of the former sign they will believe the voice of the latter sign' - and also elsewhere, for example in Nahum,

The voice of the whip and the voice of the sound of the wheel. Nahum 3:2.

And in David,

The rivers have lifted up their voice, more than the voices of many mighty waters. Psalms 93:3-4.

[4] The fact that 'the voice' means a declaration, in the good sense a declaration by the Word, when it is called 'the voice of Jehovah', is clear in David,

The voice of Jehovah is powerful; the voice of Jehovah is glorious; the voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars; the voice of Jehovah flashes forth flames of fire; the voice of Jehovah causes the wilderness to shake; the voice of Jehovah causes the hinds to calve, and strips the forests bare. Psalms 29:3-5; Psalms 7-9.

And elsewhere in the same author,

. . . to Him who rides above the heavens of heavens of old. Behold, He will put forth His voice, a mighty voice. Psalms 68:33.

Here 'voice' stands for Divine Truth, and so for the Word and a declaration made by it. For what more is meant by 'voice', see 219; and for its use in reference to truth, 3563.

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