THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE (pt. 55)

THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE
for the
NEW JERUSALEM
FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Emanuel Swedenborg
— Doctrinal Series —
(pt. 55)
THE DECALOGUE TEACHES WHAT EVILS ARE SINS.

. . . these laws were the first-fruits of the Word, and therefore the first-fruits of the church that was to be again set up by the Lord with the Israelitish nation, and as they were in a brief summary a complex of all those things of religion by means of which there is conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord, they were so holy that nothing is more so.

That they were most holy is evident from the fact that —
• Jehovah Himself (that is, the Lord) came down upon Mount Sinai in fire, and with angels, and promulgated them from it by a living voice, and that the people had prepared themselves for three days to see and to hear;
• that the mountain was fenced about lest anyone should go near it and should die; that neither were the priests nor the elders to draw near, but Moses only;
• that those laws were written by the finger of God on two tables of stone;
• that when Moses brought the tables down from the mountain the second time, his face shone;
• that the tables were afterwards laid away in the ark, and the ark in the inmost of the tabernacle, and upon it was placed the mercy-seat, and upon this cherubs of gold;
• that this was the most holy thing of their church, being called the holy of holies;
• that outside the veil that hung before it there were placed things that represented holy things of heaven and the church, namely, the lampstand with its seven golden lamps, the golden altar of incense, and the table overlaid with gold on which were the loaves of faces, and surrounded with curtains of fine linen, bright-crimson, and scarlet.

The holiness of this whole tabernacle had no other source than the Law that was in the ark.

On account of this holiness of the tabernacle from the Law in the ark, the whole people of Israel, by command, encamped around it in the order of their tribes, and marched in order after it, and there was then a cloud over it by day, and a fire by night.

On account of the holiness of that Law, and the presence of the Lord in it, the Lord spoke with Moses above the mercy-seat between the cherubs, and the ark was called "Jehovah there." Aaron also was not allowed to enter within the veil except with sacrifices and incense.

Because that Law was the very holiness of the church, the ark was brought by David into Zion; and later it was kept in the midst of the temple at Jerusalem, and constituted its shrine.

On account of the Lord's presence in that Law and around it, miracles were wrought by the ark in which was that Law:
• the waters of Jordan were cleft asunder, and so long as the ark was resting in the midst of it, the people passed over on dry ground;
• when the ark was carried round the walls of Jericho they fell;
• Dagon the god of the Philistines fell down before it, and afterwards lay on the threshold of the temple without his head;
• the Bethshemites were smitten to the number of many thousands not to mention other miracles. These were all performed solely by the Lord's presence in His Ten Words, which are the commandments of the decalogue.

(LIFE 55)