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Genesis第19章

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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:

13 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.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#2342

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2342. 'And he baked unleavened bread' means purification. This is clear from the meaning of 'unleavened' or without yeast. In the Word 'bread' means in general every celestial and spiritual food, and so in general everything celestial and spiritual, see 276, 680, 1798, 2165, 2177. The need for the latter to be free of all impurities or unholiness was represented by 'unleavened bread'; for 'yeast' means the evil and falsity by means of which celestial and spiritual things are rendered impure and profane. On account of this representation those who belonged to the representative Church were forbidden in sacrifices to offer any bread or minchah other than bread without yeast, that is, unleavened, as is clear in Moses,

Every minchah which you bring to Jehovah shall be made without yeast. Leviticus 2:11. In the same author,

You shall not sacrifice the blood of My sacrifice with that made with yeast. Exodus 23:18; 34:25.

[2] They were also forbidden therefore to eat any other bread during the seven days of the Passover than bread without yeast, that is, which was unleavened. This prohibition occurs in the following verses in Moses,

For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even on the first day you shall remove yeast from your houses, for anyone eating that made with yeast, that soul shall be cut off from Israel, from the first day until the seventh. In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month, in the evening. For seven days no yeast shall be found in your houses, for anyone eating that made with yeast, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether a settler or one born in the land. Exodus 12:15, 19-20.

The same prohibition appears in other places as well, such as Exodus 13:6-7; 23:15; 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:3-4. Consequently the Passover is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Leviticus 23:6; Numbers 28:16-17; Matthew 26:17; Luke 22:1, 7.

[3] That the Passover represented the glorification of the Lord and so the conjunction of the Divine with the human race will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown elsewhere. And because the conjunction of the Lord with the human race is effected by means of love and charity, and by means of the faith deriving from these, celestial and spiritual things were represented by the unleavened bread which they were to eat each day during the Passover. Consequently to prevent the defilement of those things by anything unholy they were strictly forbidden to eat anything made with yeast, so strictly that any who did so were to be cut off; for those who profane celestial and spiritual things inevitably perish. Anyone may see that but for this arcanum within it that observance, together with so harsh a penalty, would never have been introduced.

[4] Everything that was commanded in that Church represented some arcanum, even the actual cooking, as with every instruction which the children of Israel carried out when they were leaving Egypt, namely that they were to eat that night flesh roasted by fire, and unleavened bread on bitter herbs; they were not to eat it raw or cooked in water; the head had to be on its legs; they were to let none of it remain until the morning; they were to burn what was left over with fire, Exodus 12:8-10. Every detail of these instructions was representative - eating it at night; flesh roasted by fire; unleavened bread on bitter herbs; the head on the legs; not raw; not cooked in water; not leaving any until the morning; and burning what was left with fire. But the arcana represented are in no way apparent unless they are disclosed by means of the internal sense. That sense alone shows that all these details are Divine.

[5] Something similar was done in the ritual for the taking of a Nazirite vow. The priest was to take the cooked shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and he was to place them on the palms of the Nazirite after he had shaved his consecrated head, Numbers 6:19. Anyone who does not know that a Nazirite represented the celestial man himself does not know either that every detail of these instructions embodies celestial things, and so arcana, which are not apparent in the letter, namely the instructions to take the cooked shoulder of a ram, an unleavened cake, an unleavened wafer, and to shave off his hair. This also shows what kind of opinion regarding the Word can be gained by people who do not believe in the existence of an internal sense, for without the internal sense such details are of no consequence at all. But when the ceremonial or ritualistic element has been stripped away everything becomes Divine and holy. Everything else has a deeper meaning, as does 'unleavened bread' which means the holiness of love, or what is most holy, as it is also called in Moses,

The unleavened bread that was left over was to be eaten by Aaron and his sons in a holy place, for it was most holy. Leviticus 6:16-17.

'Unleavened bread' therefore means pure love, and 'the baking of that which is unleavened' purification.

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