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Part One · Chapter Eighteen — Karav, Naga, Nagash
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Karav, naga, and nagash. These three nouns — approaching, touching, and drawing near — may bear the sense of nearness and proximity in place, and may bear the sense of the joining of knowledge to its object, as though it were likened to the nearness of one body to another.
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As for the first sense of 'approaching,' which is nearness in place: 'as he drew near to the camp' (Exod 32:19); 'and Pharaoh drew near' (Exod 14:10).
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And 'touching' — its first sense is the contact of one body with another: 'and she touched his feet' (Exod 4:25); 'and he touched my mouth' (Isa 6:7). And the first sense of 'drawing near' is one person advancing upon another and moving toward him: 'then Judah came near to him' (Gen 44:18).
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And the second sense of these three nouns is the joining of knowledge and the nearness of apprehension — not nearness of place. Of 'touching,' in the sense of the joining of knowledge, He said: 'for her judgment reaches unto heaven' (Jer 51:9).
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And of 'approaching' it is said: 'the cause that is too hard for you, bring unto me' (Deut 1:17) — as if to say, 'inform me of it.' So it is used for making something known about an object of knowledge.
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And of 'drawing near' it is said: 'and Abraham drew near and said' (Gen 18:23) — and he was in a state of revelation, in the prophetic trance, as will be explained. 'Forasmuch as this people draw near with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me' (Isa 29:13).
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So every expression of 'approaching' or 'drawing near' that you find in the books of prophecy between God, may He be exalted, and one of His creatures, is wholly of this last sense; for God, may He be exalted, is not a body, as will be demonstrated to you in this treatise.
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So He, may He be exalted, neither comes near nor approaches anything, nor does any thing approach or come near to Him; for with the removal of corporeality, place is removed, and there lapses every nearness and proximity, distance, joining, separation, contact, or succession.
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I do not think you will doubt, nor will it confuse you, that His saying — 'the Lord is near to all who call upon Him' (Ps 145:18); 'they delight in the nearness of God' (Isa 58:2); 'the nearness of God is good for me' (Ps 73:28) — all of these are a nearness of knowledge, I mean a nearness of apprehension, not a nearness of place.
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And likewise His saying: 'who have God near to them' (Deut 4:7); 'go near and hear' (Deut 5:27); 'and Moses alone shall draw near unto the Lord, but they shall not draw near' (Exod 24:2) — unless you wish to take what is said of Moses, 'and he drew near,' as his approaching the place on the mountain where the light, that is, the glory of the Lord, had alighted; that is open to you.
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But hold fast to the principle that there is no difference between a person's being at the center of the earth or at the summit of the ninth sphere — were that possible — for he is no farther from God in the one place nor nearer to Him in the other; rather, nearness to Him, may He be exalted, is by apprehending Him, and distance from Him belongs to one who is ignorant of Him.
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And nearness and distance in this respect admit of very great gradation. I shall explain, in one of the chapters of this treatise, how gradation in apprehension comes about.
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As for His saying 'touch the mountains, and they shall smoke' (Ps 144:5) — He means by it 'let Your command reach them,' by way of figure, just as it says 'and touch his bone' (Job 2:5) — meaning 'let Your affliction alight upon him.'
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And likewise 'touching' and its derivatives: consider each according to its place — at one time it intends the contact of body with body, at another the joining of knowledge and the apprehension of some matter, so that the one who apprehends a thing he had not apprehended before has, as it were, drawn near to something he had been far from. Understand this.