Genesis 46
1
And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
2
And God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob: and he said, Here am I.
3
And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
4
I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
5
And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
6
And they took their cattle, and their goods which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him:
7
His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.
8
And these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob's first-born.
9
And the sons of Reuben; Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi.
10
And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman.
11
And the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
12
And the sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, and Zerah: but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Pharez were Hezron, and Hamul.
13
And the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.
14
And the sons of Zebulun; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel.
15
These are the sons of Leah, which she bore to Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three.
16
And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggai, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli.
17
And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister. And the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel.
18
These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter: and these she bore to Jacob, even sixteen souls.
19
The sons of Rachel Jacob's wife; Joseph, and Benjamin.
20
And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On bore to him.
21
And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard.
22
These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; all the souls were fourteen.
23
And the sons of Dan; Hushim.
24
And the sons of Naphtali; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem.
25
These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bore these to Jacob: all the souls were seven.
26
All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, who came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were sixty and six.
27
And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy.
28
And he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to direct his face to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen.
29
And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went to meet Israel his father to Goshen; and presented himself to him: and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.
30
And Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.
31
And Joseph said to his brethren, and to his father's house, I will go up, and show Pharaoh, and say to him, My brethren, and my father's house, who were in the land of Canaan are come to me.
32
And the men are shepherds, for their employment hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.
33
And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?
34
That ye shall say, The occupation of thy servants hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.
Arcana Coelestia #4901
4901. 'So it was about three months later' means a new state. This is clear from the meaning of 'three' as that which is complete, and therefore the last and at the same time the first, or the end and at the same time the beginning, dealt with in 1825, 2788, 4495; and from the meaning of 'a month' as a state, dealt with in 3814. All periods of time in the internal sense mean states, such as an hour, day, week, month, year, or age. And states are likewise meant by the periods making up these, such as the times of day, which are midday, evening, night, and morning; the seasons of the year, which are summer, autumn, winter, and spring; and also the phases of life, which are infancy and childhood, adolescence, adult years, and old age. All these periods and many more have states as their meaning. What a state actually is, see 4850.
[2] The reason periods of time mean states is that in the next life such periods do not really exist. Spirits' and angels' lives do, it is true, seem to move forward within a time-sequence; but periods of time play no part in the formation of their thought, as those periods do in the formation of men's in the world. Rather, states of life contribute to the formation of their thought, without the help of any temporal notion. Also, a further reason why such periods of time mean states is that consecutive stages in the lives of spirits and angels are not distinguished as separate times of life. For those in the next life do not age; nor are there any days or years there because the Sun there - the Lord - is always rising and never sets. Consequently no temporal notion can enter their thinking, only the notion of a state and of the stages by which this moves forward It is the things present and taking place before people's senses that are the source of the notions gained by them.
[3] These matters are bound to look like a paradox, but the reason they do so is that every single idea present in a person's thought has something of time and space attached to it. These are the source of what is in his memory and of what he recollects, and they are the source of his lower level of thought, consisting of ideas called material ones. But the memory from which such ideas are recollected is quiescent in the next life. Those who are in the next life use their interior memory and the ideas present in the thought there. Thought flowing from this interior memory does not have any temporal or spatial content, but instead of this states and the stages by which those states move forward. Consequently periods of time correspond to these, and because they correspond periods of time are used in the Word to mean states. For details about man's possession of an exterior memory which belongs properly to him while in the body, and also of an interior memory which belongs properly to his spirit, see 2469-2494.
[4] The reason 'about three months later' means a new state is that 'months', into which periods of time in the world are also divided, means state, and that, as mentioned above, 'three' means the last and at the same time the first, or the end and at the same time the beginning. Because in the spiritual world states are constantly moving forward from one into another, and as a consequence the last phase or end of each state includes the first phase or beginning of the next, resulting in a continuous sequence, 'about three months later' therefore means a new state. The same applies within the Church too, which is the spiritual world or the Lord's kingdom on earth. The last phase of the Church among one nation is always the first phase of the Church among another. Because a last phase is in this way continued into a first, the Lord is spoken of several times as the Last and the First, as in Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; Revelation 21:6; 22:13; and by this is meant in the relative sense that which is perpetual, and in the highest sense that which is eternal.
