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Genesis第1章

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1 In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --

2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters,

3 and God saith, `Let light be;' and light is.

4 And God seeth the light that [it is] good, and God separateth between the light and the darkness,

5 and God calleth to the light `Day,' and to the darkness He hath called `Night;' and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- Day one.

6 And God saith, `Let an expanse be in the midst of the waters, and let it be separating between waters and waters.'

7 And God maketh the expanse, and it separateth between the waters which [are] under the expanse, and the waters which [are] above the expanse: and it is so.

8 And God calleth to the expanse `Heavens;' and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day second.

9 And God saith, `Let the waters under the heavens be collected unto one place, and let the dry land be seen:' and it is so.

10 And God calleth to the dry land `Earth,' and to the collection of the waters He hath called `Seas;' and God seeth that [it is] good.

11 And God saith, `Let the earth yield tender grass, herb sowing seed, fruit-tree (whose seed [is] in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth:' and it is so.

12 And the earth bringeth forth tender grass, herb sowing seed after its kind, and tree making fruit (whose seed [is] in itself) after its kind; and God seeth that [it is] good;

13 and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day third.

14 And God saith, `Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to make a separation between the day and the night, then they have been for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years,

15 and they have been for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth:' and it is so.

16 And God maketh the two great luminaries, the great luminary for the rule of the day, and the small luminary -- and the stars -- for the rule of the night;

17 and God giveth them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth,

18 and to rule over day and over night, and to make a separation between the light and the darkness; and God seeth that [it is] good;

19 and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day fourth.

20 And God saith, `Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.'

21 And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind, and God seeth that [it is] good.

22 And God blesseth them, saying, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and the fowl let multiply in the earth:'

23 and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day fifth.

24 And God saith, `Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind:' and it is so.

25 And God maketh the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, and God seeth that [it is] good.

26 And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.'

27 And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.

28 And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.'

29 And God saith, `Lo, I have given to you every herb sowing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which [is] the fruit of a tree sowing seed, to you it is for food;

30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which [is] breath of life, every green herb [is] for food:' and it is so.

31 And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good; and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day the sixth.

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Heaven and Hell#137

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137. It says in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word: all things were made by means of him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. He was in the world, and the world was made by means of him. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory. (John 1:1, 3-4, 10, 14)

It is clear that the Lord is the one who is meant by "the Word," since it says that the Word was made flesh. Precisely what is meant by "the Word," though, is not yet known and must therefore be stated. The Word in this passage is the divine truth that is in the Lord and from the Lord, 1 so here it is also called the light, which is divine truth, as has been shown earlier in this chapter. Now we need to explain the statement that all things were made and created by means of divine truth.

[2] In heaven, it is divine truth that possesses all power, and apart from it there is no power whatever. 2 All angels are called "powers" because of divine truth, and are powers to the extent that they are recipients or vessels of it. Through it they prevail over the hells and over all who oppose them. A thousand enemies there cannot bear one ray of heavenly light, which is divine truth. Since angels are angels because of their acceptance of divine truth, it follows that all heaven is from this source and no other, since heaven is made up of angels.

[3] People cannot believe that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth if the only concept of truth they have has to do with thought or speech, which have no power in them except to the extent that other people concede it by being obedient. There is an intrinsic power within divine truth, though, power of such nature that by means of it heaven, the world, and everything in them was created.

We can illustrate the fact that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth by two comparisons - by the power of what is true and good in us, and by the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world.

By the power of what is true and good in us: Everything we do, we do out of our discernment and intent. Out of our intent, we act by means of what is good, and out of our discernment by means of what is true. In fact, all the elements of our volition are related to what is good, and all the elements of our discernment are related to what is true. 3 On this basis, then, we set our whole body in motion and a thousand things there rush to do our bidding of their own accord. We can see from this that our whole body is formed for obedience to what is good and true and therefore from what is good and true.

[4] By the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world: Everything that grows in our world - things like trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, fruits, and seeds - arises only by means of the warmth and light of the sun. So we can see what kind of productive power is inherent in that warmth and light. What about the divine light that is divine truth, then, and the divine warmth that is divine good, the source from which heaven comes into being and consequently the world as well, since as we have shown above, it is through heaven that the world comes into being?

This enables us to determine how to understand the statement that all things were made by means of the Word, and that without him nothing was made that was made, and further that the world was made by means of him, namely that this was accomplished by means of divine truth from the Lord. 4

This is also why in the book of creation it first mentions light and then the things that arise from light (Genesis 1:3-4). It is also why everything in all heaven and earth has to do with what is good and true and to their union if it is to be anything at all. 5

脚注:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] "The Word" in Sacred Scripture has various meanings - speech, the thought of the mind, every entity that actually comes into being, or anything at all, and in the highest sense divine truth and the Lord: 9987."The Word" means divine truth: 2803, 2884 [2894?], 4692, 5075, 5272, 7830 [7930?], 9987."The Word" means the Lord: 2533, 2859.

2. [Swedenborg's footnote] Divine truth emanating from the Lord is what possesses all power: 6948, 8200. All power in heaven belongs to the true from the good: 3091, 3563, 6344, 6413 [6423?], 8304, 9643, 10019, 10182. Angels are called powers, and are powers as a result of their acceptance of divine truth from the Lord: 9639. Angels are recipients of divine truth from the Lord, and are therefore often called "gods" in the Word: 4295, 4402, 8301, 8192, 9398 [8988?].

3. [Swedenborg's footnote] Discernment is the recipient of what is true, and volition is the recipient of what is good: 3623, 6125, 7503, 9300, 9930. Therefore, all the elements of our discernment are related to what is true, whether these things are actually true or whether we believe them to be so; and all the elements of our volition are similarly related to what is good: 803, 10122.

4. [Swedenborg's footnote] Divine truth emanating from the Lord is the only thing that is real: 6880, 7004, 8200. By means of divine truth all things were made and created: 2803, 2884, 5272, 7835 [7796?].

5. [Swedenborg's footnote] [Swedenborg's note at this point refers the reader back to the note in §107 above.]

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

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Exodus第12章

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1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

2 "This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.

3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, 'On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household;

4 and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls; according to what everyone can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats:

6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening.

7 They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it.

8 They shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.

9 Don't eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts.

10 You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire.

11 This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is Yahweh's Passover.

12 For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh.

13 The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

14 This day shall be to you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to Yahweh: throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.

15 "'Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

16 In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no kind of work shall be done in them, except that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you.

17 You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this same day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.

18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty first day of the month at evening.

19 Seven days shall there be no yeast found in your houses, for whoever eats that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a foreigner, or one who is born in the land.

20 You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread.'"

21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them, "Draw out, and take lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover.

22 You shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.

23 For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel, and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you.

24 You shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever.

25 It shall happen when you have come to the land which Yahweh will give you, according as he has promised, that you shall keep this service.

26 It will happen, when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this service?'

27 that you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of Yahweh's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses.'" The people bowed their heads and worshiped.

28 The children of Israel went and did so; as Yahweh had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

29 It happened at midnight, that Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of livestock.

30 Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

31 He called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, "Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve Yahweh, as you have said!

32 Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also!"

33 The Egyptians were urgent with the people, to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, "We are all dead men."

34 The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders.

35 The children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and clothing.

36 Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. They despoiled the Egyptians.

37 The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, besides children.

38 A mixed multitude went up also with them, with flocks, herds, and even very much livestock.

39 They baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt; for it wasn't leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt, and couldn't wait, neither had they prepared for themselves any food.

40 Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.

41 It happened at the end of four hundred thirty years, even the same day it happened, that all the armies of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt.

42 It is a night to be much observed to Yahweh for bringing them out from the land of Egypt. This is that night of Yahweh, to be much observed of all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

43 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it,

44 but every man's servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then shall he eat of it.

45 A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat of it.

46 In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not carry forth anything of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall you break a bone of it.

47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.

48 When a stranger shall live as a foreigner with you, and will keep the Passover to Yahweh, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one who is born in the land: but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.

49 One law shall be to him who is born at home, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you."

50 All the children of Israel did so. As Yahweh commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

51 It happened the same day, that Yahweh brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.