Lazarus, Come Forth!: Meditations of a Christian Esotericist on the Mysteries of the Raising of Lazarus, the Ten Commandments, the Three Kingdoms & the Breath of Life by Valentin Tomberg

Author:Valentin, Tomberg [Valentin, Tomberg]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: REL006080
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Published: 2006-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:

THE REVELATION

ON MT. SINAI

Introduction

The Cloud upon the Mountain

IN THE SECOND book of Moses (Exodus) the world-historic event of the revelation and proclamation of the Ten Commandments is depicted. There it is described how a thick cloud covered Mt. Sinai, and thunder and lightning accompanied the proclamation of the Ten Commandments. The people of Israel stood at a distance while Moses entered into the darkness in which God was (Ex. 20:21). Out of the darkness of the cloud, which covered the top of the mountain, Moses emerged, descended the mountain and proclaimed the divine commandments to the people.

Out of the cloud that lay over Mt. Sinai he brought down the Ten Commandments and communicated them to the people in human language and with a human voice. Moses “condensed” that cloud, pregnant with revelation, which lay over the mountain, into the sentences of the Ten Commandments. They were a crystallization made comprehensible and accessible to human beings, of what took place in the “darkness of the cloud, in which God was,” whereby the thunder and lightning of divine correspondences became translated or concretized into human, earthly language as the Ten Commandments. This is indicated in the biblical text itself, where it says with respect to hallowing the sabbath: “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:11). Here the heavenly divine correspondence underlying the commandment of hallowing the sabbath is expressly indicated. The heavenly divine archetype of the seventh day of creation is to be reflected in the earthly human realm. Thus the Bible provides a key toward understanding the mystery of the cloud upon the mountain. Figuratively speaking, the Ten Commandments were “condensations” distilled from the cloud, which contained the divine cosmic correspondences of the Ten Commandments intended for the earthly human domain. The cloud consisted of the cosmic divine archetypes of the earthly correspondences or reflections that are the Ten Commandments.

The third of the Ten Commandments—that of hallowing the sabbath—is no exception here. The Ten Commandments represent an organic unity, and just as the third commandment is an earthly human correspondence or reflection of a cosmic divine archetype, so it is with each of the Ten Commandments. All ten are condensations of the cosmic divine content of the same cloud upon the mountain; all are earthly human correspondences or reflections of heavenly divine archetypes. Since the proclamation of the Ten Commandments is a matter not of human but of divine legislation, their justification cannot be sought in the earthly human realm—nor in human morality, or in social relationships—but in the sphere of the cosmic divine world order, “in the cloud” that lay upon the mountain. The Ten Commandments must be an earthly human reflection of the moral world order. Accordingly, in order to be able to understand them and to properly appreciate them, it is necessary to spiritually climb to the top of Mt.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.