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Genesis 33

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1 Then Jacob, lifting up his eyes, saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. So he made a division of the children between Leah and Rachel and the two women-servants.

2 He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph at the back.

3 And he himself, going before them, went down on his face to the earth seven times till he came near his brother.

4 Then Esau came running up to him, and folding him in his arms, gave him a kiss: and the two of them were overcome with weeping.

5 Then Esau, lifting up his eyes, saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The children whom God in his mercy has given to your servant.

6 Then the servants and their children came near, and went down on their faces.

7 And Leah came near with her children, and then Joseph and Rachel, and they did the same.

8 And he said, What were all those herds which I saw on the way? And Jacob said, They were an offering so that I might have grace in my lord's eyes.

9 But Esau said, I have enough; keep what is yours, my brother, for yourself.

10 And Jacob said, Not so; but if I have grace in your eyes, take them as a sign of my love, for I have seen your face as one may see the face of God, and you have been pleased with me.

11 Take my offering then, with my blessing; for God has been very good to me and I have enough: so at his strong request, he took it.

12 And he said, Let us go on our journey together, and I will go in front.

13 But Jacob said, My lord may see that the children are only small, and there are young ones in my flocks and herds: one day's over-driving will be the destruction of all the flock.

14 Do you, my lord, go on before your servant; I will come on slowly, at the rate at which the cattle and the children are able to go, till I come to my lord at Seir.

15 And Esau said, Then keep some of my men with you. And he said, What need is there for that, if my lord is pleased with me?

16 So Esau, turning back that day, went on his way to Seir.

17 And Jacob went on to Succoth, where he made a house for himself and put up tents for his cattle: for this reason the place was named Succoth.

18 So Jacob came safely from Paddan-aram to the town of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and put up his tents near the town.

19 And for a hundred bits of money he got from the children of Hamor, the builder of Shechem, the field in which he had put up his tents.

20 And there he put up an altar, naming it El, the God of Israel.

   

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Earth

  
by Brita Conroy

Earth" is a general word that can be thought of as a container for other more specific words, as ground, field, or garden. Each of these means a person in an ascending series as that person learns truths from the Bible, thinks about them, and tries to apply them to life. The series represents the way of becoming good and wise. "Earth" and "ground" are terms that can go either way, as in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:4-8) there was both good ground and bad ground, but "field" and "garden" mean minds that are regenerating towards good. "Earth" in the Bible can mean a person or a group of like-minded people as in a church. But it refers specifically to the external of the person's mind, or of the general thought of the group. If heaven and earth are mentioned together, then both the internals and externals of the mind are meant – something to note when reading the creation story.

In Revelation the word "earth" is used both as a ground level as we use it in its natural sense and also as the sense of a group. The action in this book takes place in the great middle zone of the spiritual world, where people first go and where they are sorted out. There are both evil people and good there, and sometimes at the end of a church the evil can have great influence before a great judgment comes. This level of the spiritual realm is called the "earth" to which the dragon was cast down (Revelation 12:9) and to which the stars fell (Revelation 12:4). The "earth" that swallowed the dragon’s flood means those still-sincere people within the church who discounted the flood of the dragon's falsities (Revelation 12:15).