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Genesis 25

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1 And Abraham took another wife named Keturah.

2 She became the mother of Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah.

3 And Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And from Dedan came the Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim.

4 And from Midian came Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the offspring of Keturah.

5 Now Abraham gave all his property to Isaac;

6 But to the sons of his other women he gave offerings, and sent them away, while he was still living, into the east country.

7 Now the years of Abraham's life were a hundred and seventy-five.

8 And Abraham came to his death, an old man, full of years; and he was put to rest with his people.

9 And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, put him to rest in the hollow rock of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, near Mamre;

10 The same field which Abraham got from the children of Heth: there Abraham was put to rest with Sarah, his wife.

11 Now after the death of Abraham, the blessing of God was with Isaac, his son.

12 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whose mother was Hagar the Egyptian, the servant of Sarah:

13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their generations: Ishmael's first son was Nebaioth; then Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam

14 And Mishma and Dumah and Massa,

15 Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:

16 These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names in their towns and their tent-circles; twelve chiefs with their peoples.

17 And the years of Ishmael's life were a hundred and thirty-seven: and he came to his end, and was put to rest with his people.

18 And their country was from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt: they took their place to the east of all their brothers.

19 Now these are the generations of Abraham's son Isaac:

20 Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean of Paddan-aram, and the sister of Laban the Aramaean, to be his wife.

21 Isaac made prayer to the Lord for his wife because she had no children; and the Lord gave ear to his prayer, and Rebekah became with child.

22 And the children were fighting together inside her, and she said, If it is to be so, why am I like this? So she went to put her question to the Lord.

23 And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your body, and Two peoples will come to birth from you: the one will be stronger than the other, and the older will be the servant of the younger.

24 And when the time came for her to give birth, there were two children in her body.

25 And the first came out red from head to foot like a robe of hair, and they gave him the name of Esau.

26 And after him, his brother came out, gripping Esau's foot; and he was named Jacob: Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.

27 And the boys came to full growth; and Esau became a man of the open country, an expert bowman; but Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.

28 Now Isaac's love was for Esau, because Esau's meat was greatly to his taste: but Rebekah had more love for Jacob.

29 And one day Jacob was cooking some soup when Esau came in from the fields in great need of food;

30 And Esau said to Jacob, Give me a full meal of that red soup, for I am overcome with need for food: for this reason he was named Edom.

31 And Jacob said, First of all give me your birthright.

32 And Esau said, Truly, I am at the point of death: what profit is the birthright to me?

33 And Jacob said, First of all give me your oath; and he gave him his oath, handing over his birthright to Jacob.

34 Then Jacob gave him bread and soup; and he took food and drink and went away, caring little for his birthright.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 3293

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3293. 'Two nations are in your womb' means the natural as regards good, interior and exterior, which is conception. This is clear from the meaning of 'nations' as goods, in particular of the Church, dealt with in 1159, 1258, 1260, 1416, 1849. Here goods within the natural are meant, as is evident from the consideration that Esau and Jacob, who at that time were in the womb, represent the Lord's Divine Natural, as will be quite clear from what follows in the part where they are the subject. As with the rational the natural consists of good and of truth. The good within the natural includes all that which goes with natural affection and is called delight, whereas the truth within the natural includes all that which is part of knowledge and is termed factual knowledge. These two must be present in the natural for it to be the natural. By itself and isolated from the delight which belongs to affection, factual knowledge is not anything at all - it being from delight that the natural gets its life, since it is from this that the natural may come to know anything. However, if delight, which is the good of the natural, is devoid of factual knowledge, it is nevertheless something, though only a vital spark, as it is in young children. For the natural to be human therefore it has to consist of both elements, the one perfecting the other. But life itself it receives from good.

[2] As for the good which is the subject here, it is twofold - interior and exterior. Interior good communicates with the interior man, that is, with the rational, while exterior good communicates with the external, that is, with the things that belong to the body, bringing life to the external senses as well as to actions. Without such communication in both parts no one is able to live as a rational being or as a physical organism. Interior communication is what remains with a person after death and then constitutes his natural life, for a spirit too possesses natural life since his spiritual life is encompassed in the natural as the ultimate level of it. For no one is able to think spiritually immediately after death except from the things that belong to his natural. Exterior communication however is what a person has while he is living in the body, but it comes to an end with the death of the body. From these considerations it may now be seen what 'two nations in the womb' means, namely the natural as regards good, interior and exterior. 'In the womb' means, in the internal sense, conception, and this is why at this point the expression 'which is conception' is used in reference to that good.

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