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Genesis第38章

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1 And it cometh to pass, at that time, that Judah goeth down from his brethren, and turneth aside unto a man, an Adullamite, whose name [is] Hirah;

2 and Judah seeth there the daughter of a man, a Canaanite, whose name [is] Shuah, and taketh her, and goeth in unto her.

3 And she conceiveth, and beareth a son, and he calleth his name Er;

4 and she conceiveth again, and beareth a son, and calleth his name Onan;

5 and she addeth again, and beareth a son, and calleth his name Shelah; and he was in Chezib in her bearing him.

6 And Judah taketh a wife for Er, his first-born, and her name [is] Tamar;

7 and Er, Judah's first-born, is evil in the eyes of Jehovah, and Jehovah doth put him to death.

8 And Judah saith to Onan, `Go in unto the wife of thy brother, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother;'

9 and Onan knoweth that the seed is not [reckoned] his; and it hath come to pass, if he hath gone in unto his brother's wife, that he hath destroyed [it] to the earth, so as not to give seed to his brother;

10 and that which he hath done is evil in the eyes of Jehovah, and He putteth him also to death.

11 And Judah saith to Tamar his daughter-in-law, `Abide a widow at thy father's house, till Shelah my son groweth up;' for he said, `Lest he die -- even he -- like his brethren;' and Tamar goeth and dwelleth at her father's house.

12 And the days are multiplied, and the daughter of Shuah, Judah's wife, dieth; and Judah is comforted, and goeth up unto his sheep-shearers, he and Hirah his friend the Adullamite, to Timnath.

13 And it is declared to Tamar, saying, `Lo, thy husband's father is going up to Timnath to shear his flock;'

14 and she turneth aside the garments of her widowhood from off her, and covereth herself with a vail, and wrappeth herself up, and sitteth in the opening of Enayim, which [is] by the way to Timnath, for she hath seen that Shelah hath grown up, and she hath not been given to him for a wife.

15 And Judah seeth her, and reckoneth her for a harlot, for she hath covered her face,

16 and he turneth aside unto her by the way, and saith, `Come, I pray thee, let me Come in unto thee,' (for he hath not known that she [is] his daughter-in-law); and she saith, `What dost thou give to me, that thou mayest Come in unto me?'

17 and he saith, `I -- I send a kid of the goats from the flock.' And she saith, `Dost thou give a pledge till thou send [it]?'

18 and he saith, `What [is] the pledge that I give to thee?' and she saith, `Thy seal, and thy ribbon, and thy staff which [is] in thy hand;' and he giveth to her, and goeth in unto her, and she conceiveth to him;

19 and she riseth, and goeth, and turneth aside her vail from off her, and putteth on the garments of her widowhood.

20 And Judah sendeth the kid of the goats by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the hand of the woman, and he hath not found her.

21 And he asketh the men of her place, saying, `Where [is] the separated one -- she in Enayim, by the way?' and they say, `There hath not been in this [place] a separated one.'

22 And he turneth back unto Judah, and saith, `I have not found her; and the men of the place also have said, There hath not been in this [place] a separated one,'

23 and Judah saith, `Let her take to herself, lest we become despised; lo, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.'

24 And it cometh to pass about three months [after], that it is declared to Judah, saying, `Tamar thy daughter-in-law hath committed fornication; and also, lo, she hath conceived by fornication:' and Judah saith, `Bring her out -- and she is burnt.'

25 She is brought out, and she hath sent unto her husband's father, saying, `To a man whose these [are], I [am] pregnant;' and she saith, `Discern, I pray thee, whose [are] these -- the seal, and the ribbons, and the staff.'

26 And Judah discerneth and saith, `She hath been more righteous than I, because that I did not give her to Shelah my son;' and he hath not added to know her again.

27 And it cometh to pass in the time of her bearing, that lo, twins [are] in her womb;

28 and it cometh to pass in her bearing, that [one] giveth out a hand, and the midwife taketh and bindeth on his hand a scarlet thread, saying, `This hath come out first.'

29 And it cometh to pass as he draweth back his hand, that lo, his brother hath come out, and she saith, `What! thou hast broken forth -- on thee [is] the breach;' and he calleth his name Pharez;

30 and afterwards hath his brother come out, on whose hand [is] the scarlet thread, and he calleth his name Zarah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia#4818

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4818. 'And there Judah saw the daughter of a man, a Canaanite' means the affection for evil begotten by falsity springing from evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'the daughter' as the affection for good, dealt with in 2362, and in the contrary sense as the affection for evil, 3024; from the meaning of 'a man' as one who has intelligence and, in the abstract sense, as truth, but in the contrary sense as one who has no intelligence and as falsity, dealt with just above in 4816; and from the meaning of 'a Canaanite' as evil, dealt with in 1573, 1574. From these meanings it is evident that 'the daughter of a man, a Canaanite' means evil begotten by falsity springing from evil. What evil begotten by falsity springing from evil is will be stated below.

[2] Here the origins of the tribe of Judah must be stated first, since these are the subject in this chapter. That tribe, or the Jewish nation, has three origins, the first being Shelah, Judah's son by his Canaanite wife, the second and third being Perez and Zerah, Judah's sons by his daughter-in-law. The descent of the whole Jewish nation from these three sons of Judah is evident from the list of Jacob's sons and grandsons who accompanied him into Egypt, Genesis 46:12, and also from the grouping of them into families, referred to in Moses,

The sons of Judah according to their families were: of Shelah, the family of the Shelanites; of Perez, the family of the Parzites; of Zerah, the family of the Zarhites. Numbers 26:20; 1 Chronicles 4:21.

From this the nature of that nation's origin is evident; that is to say, a third of them were descended from a Canaanite mother and two thirds from a daughter-in-law. They were all therefore the product of an illicit union, because marriages to daughters of the Canaanites were strictly forbidden - as may be seen in Genesis 24:3; Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3; 1 Kings 11:2; and Chapters 9, 10 of Ezra - while lying with a daughter-in-law was a capital offence, as is evident in Moses,

As regards a man who has lain with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be killed; they have committed perversion; 1 their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:12.

What Judah and his daughter-in-law had done together was linked by him to the law regarding leviratical marriages, which lays down the duty of a brother but never of a father, as is evident from verse 26 of the present chapter. Judah's linking of their deed together to this law implies that the sons of Tamar were to be recognized as the sons of Er the firstborn, who was born from the Canaanite mother, and who was evil in Jehovah's eyes and was therefore made to die, verse 7. For initially those born in a leviratical marriage did not belong to the one from whom they had been conceived but to him whose seed was being raised up, as is clear from Deuteronomy 25:5-6, and also from verses 8 and 9 of the present chapter. Furthermore, the sons whom Tamar bore were the result of whoredom, for when Judah went in to her he thought she was a prostitute, verses 15-16, 21. From all this one can see the origin of the Jewish nation and what kind of origin this was; and one can see that their words in John were founded on a lie,

The Jews said to Him, We were not born of whoredom. John 8:41.

[3] As regards what that origin implies and what it represents, this is evident from what follows. That is to say, those people's interiors were the same or had the same origin. Judah's marriage to a Canaanite implies and represents an origin that consisted in evil begotten by falsity springing from evil, for this is what is meant in the internal sense by 'the daughter of a man, a Canaanite'. And his lying through whoredom with his daughter-in-law implies and represents condemnation due to truth falsified by evil, for throughout the Word 'whoredom' means the falsification of truth, see 3703. 2 Evil begotten by falsity springing from evil is an evil life resulting from a false teaching hatched by the evil of self-love - that is, by those governed by this evil - and backed up by a use of the sense of the letter of the Word. This is what the origin of the evil in the Jewish nation is like, and what the origin of the evil is like in the Christian world, especially among those meant in the Word by Babel. The nature of that evil is such that it closes every path leading into the internal man, closing every path so completely that no conscience at all can be formed there. For if any evil done by a person is due to a false teaching, he believes that this is good because he believes that it is true. He accordingly does it, because he has warrant to do so, with a sense of freedom and delight. All this being so, heaven is closed so completely against him that it cannot be opened.

[4] As an example to explain what this evil is like, take those who from the evil of self-love believe the following: One nation alone is Jehovah's chosen people, in comparison with whom all the rest of mankind are slaves. The rest, they believe, are so base that they may be killed at will and may be treated in a cruel fashion. Such ideas, likewise backed up by a use of the sense of the letter of the Word, were the beliefs of the Jewish nation, as they are also of the Babylonish 3 nation at the present day. Whatever kind of evil done by the latter that is the result of that false teaching, and of any other false teachings built on that one as their foundation, is evil begotten by falsity springing from evil. It destroys the internal man and shuts out even the possibility of any conscience being formed there. These people are referred to in the Word as those immersed in bloodshed; for they treat in savage ways the entire human race because it does not venerate what they believe and so themselves too, and because it does not present its gifts on their altars.

[5] Take another example - those who from the evil of self-love and love of the world believe in the necessity for someone to act as the Lord's vicar on earth. They believe that this person has power to open and close heaven, and so to control everyone's mind and conscience, and they back up this falsity by a use of the sense of the letter of the Word. In their case whatever kind of evil they perform as a result of these ideas is evil begotten by falsity springing from evil, which similarly destroys the internal man in those who are led by that evil to lay claim to that power and so control others. That evil destroys the internal man so completely that people cease to know any longer what the internal man is, or to know of the existence of conscience in anyone, with the result that they cease to believe any longer in a life after death, or in the existence of hell and of heaven, however much they talk about these.

[6] The nature of this evil is such that people in the world cannot tell it apart from other evils; but in the next life angels recognize it quite clearly. For in the next life the countless differences in the essential nature and the origin of evils and falsities are in full view; and it is also the genera and species to which these evils and falsities belong that mark off the hells from one another. Of these countless differences man knows scarcely anything. He believes in the existence of evil but has no knowledge of its essential nature, for the simple reason that he does not know what good is, and does not know what good is because he does not know what charity is. If he knew what the good of charity was he would also know its opposites, which are evils, and also their differences.

脚注:

1. literally, confusion

2. Reading 3703 for 3708

3. i. e. Papal

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