IBhayibheli

 

Matthew 5

Funda

   

1 Men da han så Skarerne, steg han op på Bjerget; og da han havde sat sig, gik hans Disciple hen til ham,

2 og han oplod sin Mund, lærte dem og sagde:

3 "Salige ere de fattige i Ånden, thi Himmeriges ige er deres.

4 Salige ere de, som sørge, thi de skulle husvales.

5 Salige ere de sagtmodige, thi de skulle arve Jorden.

6 Salige ere de, som hungre og tørste efter etfærdigheden, thi de skulle mættes.

7 Salige ere de barmhjertige, thi dem skal vises Barmhjertighed.

8 Salige ere de rene af Hjertet, thi de skulle se Gud.

9 Salige ere de, som stifte Fred, thi de skulle kaldes Guds Børn.

10 Salige ere de, som ere forfulgte for etfærdigheds Skyld, thi Himmeriges ige er deres.

11 Salige ere I, når man håner og forfølger eder og lyver eder alle Hånde ondt på for min Skyld.

12 Glæder og fryder eder, thi eders Løn skal være stor i Himlene; thi således have de forfulgt Profeterne, som vare før eder.

13 I ere Jordens Salt; men dersom Saltet mister sin Kraft, hvormed skal det da saltes? Det duer ikke til andet end at kastes ud og nedtrædes af Menneskene.

14 I ere Verdens Lys; en Stad, som ligger på et Bjerg, kan ikke skjules.

15 Man tænder heller ikke et Lys og sætter det under Skæppen, men Lysestagen; så skinner det for alle dem, som ere i Huset.

16 Lader således eders Lys skinne for Menneskene, at de må se eders gode Gerninger og ære eders Fader, som er i Himlene.

17 Mener ikke, at jeg er kommen for at nedbryde Loven eller Profeterne;jeg er ikke kommen for at nedbryde, men for at fuldkomme.

18 Thi sandelig, siger jeg eder, indtil Himmelen og Jorden forgår, skal end ikke det mindste Bogstav eller en Tøddel forgå af Loven, indtil det er sket alt sammen.

19 Derfor, den, som bryder et at de mindste af disse Bud og lærer Menneskene således, han skal kaldes den mindste i Himmeriges ige; men den, som gør dem og lærer dem, han skal kaldes stor i Himmeriges ige.

20 Thi jeg siger eder: Uden eders etfærdighed overgår de skriftkloges og Farisæernes, komme I ingenlunde ind i Himmeriges ige.

21 I have hørt, at der er sagt til de gamle: Du må ikke slå ihjel, men den, som slår ihjel, skal være skyldig for Dommen.

22 Men jeg siger eder, at hver den, som bliver vred på sin Broder uden Årsag, skal være skyldig for Dommen; og den, som siger til sin Broder: aka! skal være skyldig for ådet; og den, som siger: Du Dåre! skal være skyldig til Helvedes Ild.

23 Derfor, når du ofrer din Gave Alteret og der kommer i Hu, at din Broder har noget imod dig,

24 så lad din Gave blive der foran Alteret, og gå hen, forlig dig først med din Broder, og kom da og offer din Gave!

25 Vær velvillig mod din Modpart uden Tøven, medens du er med ham på Vejen, for at Modparten ikke skal overgive dig til Dommeren, og Dommeren til Tjeneren, og du skal kastes i Fængsel.

26 Sandelig, siger jeg dig, du skal ingenlunde komme ud derfra, førend du får betalt den sidste Hvid.

27 I have hørt, at der er sagt: Du må ikke bedrive Hor.

28 Men jeg siger eder, at hver den, som ser på en Kvinde for at begære hende, har allerede bedrevet Hor med hende i sit Hjerte.

29 Men dersom dit højre Øje forarger dig, så riv det ud, og kast det fra dig; thi det er bedre for dig, at eet af dine Lemmer fordærves, end at hele dit Legeme bliver kastet i Helvede.

30 Og om din højre Hånd forarger dig, så hug den af og kast den fra dig; thi det er bedre for dig, at eet af dine Lemmer fordærves, end at hele dit Legeme kommer i Helvede.

31 Og der er sagt: Den, som skiller sig fra sin Hustru, skal give hende et Skilsmissebrev.

32 Men jeg siger eder, at enhver, som skiller sig fra sin Hustru, uden for Hors Skyld, gør, at hun bedriver Hor, og den, som tager en fraskilt Kvinde til Ægte, bedriver Hor.

33 I have fremdeles hørt, at der er sagt til de gamle: Du må ikke gøre nogen falsk Ed, men du skal holde Herren dine Eder.

34 Men jeg siger eder, at I må aldeles ikke sværge, hverken ved Himmelen, thi den er Guds Trone,

35 ej heller ved Jorden, thi den er hans Fodskammel, ej heller ved Jerusalem, thi det er den store Konges Stad.

36 Du må heller ikke sværge ved dit Hoved, thi du kan ikke gøre et eneste Hår hvidt eller sort.

37 Men eders Tale skal være ja, ja, nej, nej; hvad der er ud over dette, er af det onde.

38 I have hørt, at der er sagt: Øje for Øje, og Tand for Tand.

39 Men jeg siger eder, at I må ikke sætte eder imod det onde; men dersom nogen giver dig et Slag på din højre Kind, da vend ham også den anden til!

40 Og dersom nogen vil gå i ette med dig og tage din Kjortel, lad ham da også få Kappen!

41 Og dersom nogen tvinger dig til at gå een Mil,da gå to med ham!

42 Giv den, som beder dig, og vend dig ikke fra den, som vil låne af dig.

43 I have hørt, at der er sagt: Du skal elske din Næste og hade din Fjende.

44 Men jeg siger eder: Elsker eders Fjender, velsigner dem, som forbande eder, gører dem godt, som hade eder, og beder for dem, som krænke eder og forfølge eder,

45 for at I må vorde eders Faders Børn, han, som er i Himlene; thi han lader sin Sol opgå over onde og gode og lader det regne over retfærdige og uretfærdige.

46 Thi dersom I elske dem, som elske eder, hvad Løn have I da? Gøre ikke også Tolderne det samme?

47 Og dersom I hilse eders Brødre alene, hvad stort gøre I da? Gøre ikke også Hedningerne det samme?

48 Værer da I fuldkomne, ligesom eders himmelske Fader er fuldkommen.

   


The Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie Mellon University

Okususelwe Emisebenzini kaSwedenborg

 

De Verbo (The Word) #4

Funda lesi Sigaba

  
Yiya esigabeni / 26  
  

4. IV. The Word is holy, even in its characters and points.

I once had a paper sent me from heaven written in the Hebrew alphabet, but as in the most ancient texts, where the letters, which today are to some extent composed of straight lines, were then curved with serifs pointing upwards. An angel who was with me said that he knew whole meanings simply from the letters, and each letter has its own particular meaning. They knew this from the curves of the lines in each letter, in addition to the subject which they knew separately from the letter as a whole. He then explained to me the meaning of yod (י), aleph (א) and he (ה), the two letters separately and when put together. He said that he, which is in [YHWH], and which was added to the names of Abraham and Sarah [Genesis 17:5, 15] meant what is infinite and eternal. He said that in many places the Word is so written; and when it is read in the Hebrew text by a Jew or a Christian, the meaning of the individual letters is known in the third heaven. For the angels of the third heaven have the Word written in such letters, and they read it letter by letter. They said that in the sense to be drawn from the letters the Word deals only with the Lord. The reason is that the curves in the letters derive from the flow of heaven, which influences especially the angels of the third heaven. Those angels therefore have an innate knowledge of this script, because they are subject to the order of heaven and live altogether in accordance with it. 1

[2] They explained to me also the meaning of Psalm 32:2 in the Word from the letters or syllables alone, and said that their meaning might be summarised as 'the Lord is merciful even to those who do evil'. They went on to say that the vowels there are to denote the sound corresponding to the affection. They could not pronounce the vowels i and e, but for i they pronounce y 2 or eu, for e they say eu. They use the vowels a, o and u, because these vowels give a full sound, but i and e a close sound. Also they do not pronounce some consonants with a hard, but a soft sound, and hard letters such (daleth) and (qoph), 3 etc. have no meaning for them unless pronounced softly. This too is the reason why many hard letters are also used with points inside them, meaning that [they are pronounced with a hard sound, but without a point] they are pronounced with a soft sound. 4 They added that hardness in letters is in use in the spiritual heaven, because those there are in possession of truths, and have understanding by their means. But in the celestial heaven all are in possession of the good of love and consequently of wisdom, and truth allows hardness, but good does not. These facts may establish what is the meaning of the Lord's saying that not a jot or a tittle or a serif will pass away from the Law (Matthew 5:18; Luke 16:17); and it is also clear from these facts that the Lord's Divine Providence ensured that all the letters in the Hebrew text of the Word were counted by the Massoretes.

Imibhalo yaphansi:

1. On the heavenly scripts see further, in nos. 14[4] and 26[3] in this version of this translation. In the printed version see nos. 33, 62. [NCBS Editor's note: This online version of Dr. Chadwick's translation was renumbered to match others on the site, with fewer main sections, and more subsections nested in them.]

The Author uses language appropriate to the alphabetical scripts he knew, but it is clear that he is really describing ideographic scripts similar to Chinese, where each character has a meaning rather than primarily a sound. -Translator

2. As in French u or German. -Translator

3. Probably an error for kaph. -Translator

4. The letters b, g, d, k, p, t seem to be meant, since in Hebrew these are pronounced as spirants except when they have a dot in the middle. The correction is due to B. Rogers. -Translator

  
Yiya esigabeni / 26  
  

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

Okususelwe Emisebenzini kaSwedenborg

 

De Verbo (The Word) #14

Funda lesi Sigaba

  
Yiya esigabeni / 26  
  

14. XIV. The Word in the heavens.

The Word exists in all the heavens, and it is read there as it is in the world, and sermons are based on it. For it is the Divine Truth which is the source of the angels' intelligence and wisdom. For without the Word no one knows anything about the Lord, love and faith, redemption, and all the other secrets of heavenly wisdom. In fact without the Word heaven would not exist, just as without the Word there would be no church in the world, so that there would be no linking with the Lord. I demonstrated above that natural theology is impossible without revelation, and in the Christian world without the Word. If it is not granted in the world, neither would it be granted after death. For the nature of a person's religious belief in the world dictates its nature after death, when he becomes a spirit. The whole of heaven is not made up of angels created before the world or at the same time as it, but of those who were people on earth, and were then angels inwardly. By means of the Word these in heaven acquire spiritual, that is, inner wisdom, because the Word there is spiritual.

[2] The Word in the Lord's spiritual kingdom is not the same as the Word in the world. In the world there is the natural Word, but in that kingdom there is a spiritual Word. The difference is like that between its natural and spiritual senses. The nature of the spiritual sense has been demonstrated at length in my Arcana Caelestia, where the whole contents of Genesis and Exodus have been explained in accordance with that sense. The difference is such that no word is the same. Things take the place of names, and likewise of numbers; the histories are replaced by matters concerning the church. The surprising thing is that, when an angel reads it, he is unaware that it is not the same as what he read in the Word while in the world. This is because he no longer has any natural ideas, since they are replaced with spiritual ones; and the natural and the spiritual are linked by correspondences into a kind of unity.

So when someone passes from the natural into the spiritual, it seems to him as if they were the same. In fact an angel does not know that he is wiser than he was in the world, though his wisdom is really so superior as to be comparatively indescribable. He is unable to recognise the difference, because in his spiritual state he knows nothing of the natural state, which he had in the world; and he is unable to compare and differentiate them, because he cannot return to his former state so as to make a comparison. Still an angel in heaven is constantly being brought to a higher degree of perfection in wisdom than he had in the world, because his affection for spiritual truth is purer. 1

[3] However, the Word in the Lord's celestial kingdom is far superior and wiser than the Word in His spiritual kingdom. The difference is of the same kind as that which distinguishes the natural Word in the world from the spiritual Word, as has been stated. For that Word contains an inmost sense, called celestial, which in all its details refers to nothing but the Lord. In this Word the Lord is read in place of Jehovah, and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and also the Lord is named in place of David, Moses, Elijah and the rest of the Prophets; and His divinity is distinguished by special marks. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and also the names of the Apostles, when read there, convey something about the Lord as regards the church; and so with all the rest. From this it became plain to me that the whole of the Sacred Scripture deals in its inmost sense with nothing but the Lord.

The difference which distinguishes the two Words, the spiritual and the celestial, is like that between thoughts, the province of the intellect, and affections, the province of the will. For the angels of the celestial kingdom are guided by love to the Lord and so affection for good; the angels of the spiritual kingdom are guided by faith in the Lord and so by perception of truth.

[4] Another difference between the celestial and spiritual Words is their script. The script of the spiritual Word is made up of letters resembling the printed letters of our world; but each letter has a meaning. If therefore you were to see that script, you would not understand a single word. For one letter succeeds another without a break, with dashes and dots above and below, since it is in accordance with spiritual speech, which has nothing in common with natural speech. The wiser angels are, the more they see of the inner secrets of their Word so written, more so than the simpler angels. What is stored there is plainly visible to the eyes of the wise, but not to the eyes of the simple. It is similar to what happens with our Word, but to a greater degree; here too the wise see more than the simple.

The script of the celestial Word, however, is made up of letters not known in the world. They are indeed alphabetical, but each one of them is composed of curved lines with serifs above and below, and there are small marks or dots in the letters, and also above and below them. I was told that the most ancient people on this earth had such a script. Some details agree with the Hebrew script, but not much. Such a script expresses the affections which make up a love; so it contains more secrets than they themselves can ever utter. They express these unutterable secrets which they perceive from their Word by means of representations. The wisdom hidden away in this Word surpasses the wisdom in the spiritual Word as a thousand does one.

[5] To make the difference between the three Words, the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, intelligible, let us take as an example the first chapters of Genesis, which deal with Adam, his wife and the Garden. 2 In the natural Word which we have in this world there is a description of the creation of the world, the first creation of man, and the earthly pleasures and delights of man and the world. By the persons named following him up to the Flood are meant his descendants, and the numbers mean their ages. But in the spiritual Word the angels of the spiritual kingdom have, this is not what is meant. The first chapter is a description of the reform and regeneration of the people of the most ancient church; this too is called a new creation. The second chapter describes as the Garden the intelligence of the people of that church; Adam and his wife stand for the church itself, and their descendants down to the Flood describe the changes in the state of that church, up to the time when it came to an end and was finally destroyed by the Flood.

But in the celestial Word possessed by the angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom, the first chapter describes the glorification of the Lord's Human; the Garden describes his Divine wisdom. Adam himself is understood to mean the Lord as regards the Divine itself and at the same time the Divine Human. His wife stands for the church, which since it has life from the Lord is called Eve from [the Hebrew word for] life. Adam says of her that she was to be his bone and his flesh, and [they should be] one flesh, because the church comes from the Lord, and is out of Him and with Him as if one. The names of the descendants of Adam describe the successive states by which the Lord was received by the people of that church and linked with them, until there was nothing at all received and so no linking.

[6] So when the first chapters in our Word are read by upright people, especially by boys and girls, and they feel joy at the state when everything was created and at the Garden, then these meanings are unfolded, and the spiritual angels understand them in accordance with their Word, and the celestial angels in accordance with theirs, without being aware that a person or a child is reading it. These meanings are unfolded in their due sequence because they correspond, and correspondences are from creation like this. This makes it plain what the Word is like in its depths, that is, it has three senses. The last is the natural one for men on earth; this deals mainly with worldly matters and where it deals with Divine matters, they are still described by the kind of things which the world contains. The middle sense is the spiritual one, which describes the kind of things which belong to the church. The inmost sense is the celestial one, which contains the kind of things which belong to the Lord. For the whole of nature is a theatre representing the Lord's kingdom; and the Lord's kingdom, heaven and the church, is a theatre representing the Lord Himself. For just as the Lord glorified His Human, so too He regenerates a person; and as He regenerates a person, so too did He create him.

[7] These facts may establish what the Word is like in its depths. The natural Word as possessed by the Christian part of the world contains within itself a spiritual and a celestial Word. For the spiritual sense of our Word is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's spiritual kingdom; and the celestial sense of our Word, its inmost sense, is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's celestial kingdom. Our Word therefore contains both the spiritual and the celestial Words; but the spiritual Word and the celestial Word do not contain the natural Word. The Word of our world is therefore the one most full of Divine wisdom, and consequently more holy than the Word of the heavens.

Imibhalo yaphansi:

1. Reading veri spiritualis for veri spirituali. -Translator

2. i.e. the Garden of Eden. -Translator

  
Yiya esigabeni / 26  
  

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