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Exodus第3章

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1 And Moses hath been feeding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Midian, and he leadeth the flock behind the wilderness, and cometh in unto the mount of God, to Horeb;

2 and there appeareth unto him a messenger of Jehovah in a flame of fire, out of the midst of the bush, and he seeth, and lo, the bush is burning with fire, and the bush is not consumed.

3 And Moses saith, `Let me turn aside, I pray thee, and I see this great appearance; wherefore is the bush not burned?'

4 and Jehovah seeth that he hath turned aside to see, and God calleth unto him out of the midst of the bush, and saith, `Moses, Moses;' and he saith, `Here [am] I.'

5 And He saith, `Come not near hither: cast thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place on which thou art standing is holy ground.'

6 He saith also, `I [am] the God of thy father, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob;' and Moses hideth his face, for he is afraid to look towards God.

7 And Jehovah saith, `I have certainly seen the affliction of My people who [are] in Egypt, and their cry I have heard, because of its exactors, for I have known its pains;

8 and I go down to deliver it out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to cause it to go up out of the land, unto a land good and broad, unto a land flowing with milk and honey -- unto the place of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

9 `And now, lo, the cry of the sons of Israel hath come in unto Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them,

10 and now, come, and I send thee unto Pharaoh, and bring thou out My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.'

11 And Moses saith unto God, `Who [am] I, that I go unto Pharaoh, and that I bring out the sons of Israel from Egypt?'

12 and He saith, `Because I am with thee, and this [is] to thee the sign that I have sent thee: in thy bringing out the people from Egypt -- ye do serve God on this mount.'

13 And Moses saith unto God, `Lo, I am coming unto the sons of Israel, and have said to them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they have said to me, What [is] His name? what do I say unto them?'

14 And God saith unto Moses, `I AM THAT WHICH I AM;' He saith also, `Thus dost thou say to the sons of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.'

15 And God saith again unto Moses, `Thus dost thou say unto the sons of Israel, Jehovah, God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this [is] My name -- to the age, and this My memorial, to generation -- generation.

16 `Go, and thou hast gathered the elders of Israel, and hast said unto them: Jehovah, God of your fathers, hath appeareth unto me, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I have certainly inspected you, and that which is done to you in Egypt;

17 and I say, I bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, unto the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing [with] milk and honey.

18 `And they have hearkened to thy voice, and thou hast entered, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye have said unto him, Jehovah, God of the Hebrews, hath met with us; and now, let us go, we pray thee, a journey of three days into the wilderness, and we sacrifice to Jehovah our God.

19 `And I -- I have known that the king of Egypt doth not permit you to go, unless by a strong hand,

20 and I have put forth My hand, and have smitten Egypt with all My wonders, which I do in its midst -- and afterwards he doth send you away.

21 `And I have given the grace of this people in the eyes of the Egyptians, and it hath come to pass, when ye go, ye go not empty;

22 and [every] woman hath asked from her neighbour, and from her who is sojourning in her house, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and garments, and ye have put [them] on your sons and on your daughters, and have spoiled the Egyptians.'

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#1748

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1748. 'That not a thread, nor even the latchet of a shoe' means all things, natural and bodily, that were unclean. This is clear from the meaning of 'the latchet of a shoe'. In the Word 'the sole of the foot, and the heel' means the lowest part of the natural, as shown already in 259. The shoe is that which covers the sole and the heel, and therefore 'a shoe' means something still more natural, thus the bodily itself. The exact meaning of a shoe depends on the actual subject. When it has reference to goods it is used in a good sense, but when it has reference to evils it is used in a bad sense, as it is here where the subject is the acquisitions of the king of Sodom, who means evil and falsity. 'The latchet of a shoe' therefore means things, natural and bodily, that are unclean. 'The thread of a shoe' means falsity, and 'the latchet of a shoe' evil, and because the expression denotes something very small the most degraded of all is meant.

[2] That these things are meant by a shoe is clear also from other places in the Word, such as when Jehovah appeared to Moses from the middle of the bush and said to Moses,

Do not come near here; put off your shoes from on your feet, for the place or which you are standing is holy ground. Exodus 3:5.

Similarly, in what the commander of Jehovah's army said to Joshua,

Put off your shoe from on your foot, for the place on which you are standing is holy. Joshua 5:15.

From this anyone may see that a shoe would not take away anything from the holiness provided the individual were holy in himself, but that this was said because 'a shoe' represented the lowest natural and bodily that was to be cast off.

[3] That it is the unclean natural and bodily is also clear in David,

Moab is My washbasin; upon Edom I will cast My shoe. Psalms 60:8.

The commandment to the disciples embodies the same,

If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, as you leave that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Matthew 10:14; Mark 6:11; Luke 9:5.

Here 'dust of your feet' is similar in meaning to a shoe, for 'the sole of the foot' means the lowest natural, that is to say, uncleanness resulting from evil and falsity. They were commanded to do this because at that time they lived in an age of representatives, and imagined that heavenly arcana were stored away solely in these and not in naked truths.

[4] Because 'the shoe' meant the lowest natural, shedding, that is, 'taking off the shoe' meant that the lowest things of nature were to be shed, as in the case, mentioned in Moses, of any man who refused to fulfill the obligations of a brother-in-law,

He who refuses to fulfill the obligations of a brother-in-law - his sister-in-law shall go up to him in the sight of the elders, and she shall remove his shoe from upon his foot and spit in his face; 1 and she shall answer and say, So will it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house. And his name will be called in Israel, The house of him who has his shoe taken off. Deuteronomy 25:5-10.

This stands for being devoid of all natural charity.

[5] That 'a shoe' means as well, in a good sense, the lowest natural is clear from the Word, as in Moses when referring to Asher,

Blessed above sons be Asher; let him be acceptable to his brothers, and dipping his foot in oil. Your 2 shoe will be iron and bronze. Deuteronomy 33:24-25.

Here 'shoe' stands for the lowest natural - 'iron shoe' for natural truth, 'bronze shoe' for natural good - as is clear from the meaning of iron and bronze, 425, 426. And because the shoe meant the lowest natural and bodily part, it therefore became a figurative expression for the least and basest thing of all, for the lowest natural and bodily part is the basest of all in man; and this is what John the Baptist meant when he said,

There is coming one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to untie. Luke 3:16; Mark 1:7; John 1:27.

脚注:

1. literally, faces

2. The Latin means His, but the Hebrew means Your, which Swedenborg has in another place where he quotes this verse.

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