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Exodus第1章

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1 These are the names of the children of Israel, that went into Egypt with Jacob: they went in, every man with his household:

2 Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda,

3 Issachar, Zabulon, and Benjamin,

4 Dan, and Nephtali, Gad and Aser.

5 And all the souls that came out of Jacob's thigh, were seventy: but Joseph was in Egypt.

6 After he was dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation,

7 The children of Israel increased, and sprung up into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong they filled the land.

8 In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph:

9 And he said to his people: Behold the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than we.

10 Come, let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war shall rise against us, join with our enemies, and having overcome us, depart out of the land.

11 Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens, and they built for Pharao cities of tabernacles, Phithom and Ramesses.

12 But the more they oppressed them, the more they were multiplied, and increased:

13 And the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them:

14 And they made their life bitter with hard works in clay, and brick, and with all manner of service, wherewith they were overcharged in the works of the earth.

15 And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua,

16 Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive.

17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children.

18 And the king called for them and said: What is that you meant to do, that you would save the men children ?

19 They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skillful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them.

20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.

21 And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses.

22 Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#6666

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6666. 'And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve' means the aim to bring them under their control. This is clear from the meaning of 'making them serve' as bringing under their control, here the aim to do so because although they endeavour constantly to bring others under their control they never get the upper hand over those who are good; from the meaning of 'the Egyptians' as separated factual knowledge that is opposed to the Church's truths, dealt with in 6651; and from the meaning of 'the children of Israel' as the Church, dealt with in 6637. From these meanings it is evident that 'the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve' means the aim held by those who favour separated factual knowledge opposed to the Church's truths, to bring them [the Church] under their control.

[2] As regards the aim to bring others under one's own control, I have also been allowed to know what that aim is like among the evil belonging to hell. The nature of their endeavour and aim to bring under their control those who accept what is good and true defies description. For they employ every kind of malice, every kind of guile and deceit, every kind of trickery, and every kind of cruelty, the extent and nature of which are such that if merely a part were mentioned scarcely anyone in the world could believe it, so full of guile and artfulness are the methods they use, and so unspeakable too. In short those methods are such that no one at all, not even any angel, only the Lord, can stand up to them. The reason why such an endeavour and aim is present in them is that the whole delight of their life, thus their very life, consists in the doing of evil, on account of which nothing else occupies their minds, and consequently nothing else is intended by them. They cannot do anything good at all because it repels them; or if they do do anything good, it is for selfish reasons, thus only for themselves.

[3] Hells made up of people like this are growing immensely larger at the present day; and what is astounding, such people come mainly from among those within the Church on account of all the guile, trickery, hatred, revenge, and adultery that flourish there more than anywhere else. For in the Church of today guile is reckoned to be cleverness, and adultery to be honourable behaviour; and those who think anything different are laughed at. Since this is the situation at the present day within the Church, it is a sign that its last days are at hand, for according to the Lord's words recorded in Matthew 24:22, unless it came to an end 'no flesh would be saved'. Indeed all evil is infectious and like rottenness contaminates the whole, thus everyone in the end.

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