Bible

 

Genesis 35

Studie

   

1 And God said to Jacob, Go up now to Beth-el and make your living-place there: and put up an altar there to the God who came to you when you were in flight from your brother Esau.

2 Then Jacob said to all his people, Put away the strange gods which are among you, and make yourselves clean, and Put on a change of clothing:

3 And let us go up to Beth-el: and there I will make an altar to God, who gave me an answer in the day of my trouble, and was with me wherever I went.

4 Then they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which they had, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob put them away under the holy tree at Shechem.

5 So they went on their journey: and the fear of God was on the towns round about, so that they made no attack on the sons of Jacob.

6 And Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan (which is the same as Beth-el), he and all his people.

7 And there he made an altar, naming the place El-beth-el: because it was there he had the vision of God when he was in flight from his brother.

8 And Deborah, the servant who had taken care of Rebekah from her birth, came to her end, and was put to rest near Beth-el, under the holy tree: and they gave it the name of Allon-bacuth.

9 Now when Jacob was on his way from Paddan-aram, God came to him again and, blessing him, said,

10 Jacob is your name, but it will be so no longer; from now your name will be Israel; so he was named Israel.

11 And God said to him, I am God, the Ruler of all: be fertile, and have increase; a nation, truly a group of nations, will come from you, and kings will be your offspring;

12 And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you; and to your seed after you I will give the land.

13 Then God went up from him in the place where he had been talking with him.

14 And Jacob put up a pillar in the place where he had been talking with God, and put a drink offering on it, and oil.

15 And he gave to the place where God had been talking with him, the name of Beth-el.

16 So they went on from Beth-el; and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, the pains of birth came on Rachel and she had a hard time.

17 And when her pain was very great, the woman who was helping her said, Have no fear; for now you will have another son.

18 And in the hour when her life went from her (for death came to her), she gave the child the name Ben-oni: but his father gave him the name of Benjamin.

19 So Rachel came to her end and was put to rest on the road to Ephrath (which is Beth-lehem).

20 And Jacob put up a pillar on her resting-place; which is named, The Pillar of the resting-place of Rachel, to this day.

21 And Israel went journeying on and put up his tents on the other side of the tower of the flock.

22 Now while they were living in that country, Reuben had connection with Bilhah, his father's servant-woman: and Israel had news of it.

23 Now Jacob had twelve sons: the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's first son, and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;

24 The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;

25 The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali;

26 The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher; these are the sons whom Jacob had in Paddan-aram.

27 And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had been living.

28 And Isaac was a hundred and eighty years old.

29 Then Isaac came to his end and was put to rest with his father's people, an old man after a long life: and Jacob and Esau, his sons, put him in his last resting-place.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 4667

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

4667. 'Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan' means the Lord's Divine Natural, which existed in accord with and beneath Divine Rational Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'dwelling' as living, dealt with in 1293, 3384, 3613, 4451; from the representation of 'Jacob' in the highest sense as the Lord's Divine Natural, dealt with in 3305, 3509, 3525, 3544, 3576, 3599, 3775, 4009, 4234, 4286, 4538, 4570; from the representation of Isaac, to whom 'father' refers here, as the Lord's Divine Rational as regards good, dealt with in 1893, 2066, 2630, 3012, 3194, 3210; and from the meaning of 'the land of Canaan' in the highest sense as the Lord's Divine Human, dealt with in 3038, 3705. From all this one may now see that 'Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan' means the Lord's Divine Natural living together with, or in accord with and beneath, Divine Rational Good, within the Divine Human. The fact that the Lord's Natural now had everything Divine within it has been dealt with already at Chapter 35:22-26, see 4602-4610; and the fact that the Lord's Divine Natural was joined to His Divine Rational, at verses 27-29 of that same chapter, see 4611-4619. What is said now forms a conclusion, namely that the Divine Natural led a life in accord with and beneath Divine Rational Good.

[2] The phrase 'beneath Divine Rational Good' is used because the Natural lives beneath that Good. For the Rational is higher or more internal - or prior, to use the customary expression - whereas the Natural is lower or more external, and therefore posterior. Thus the Natural is subordinate to the Rational; indeed when they accord with each other the Natural is nothing else than the general outline of the Rational, for whatever the Natural possesses does not belong to it but to the Rational, the only difference between the two being like that between particular aspects and their general outline, or like that between individual details and the form in which those details are seen as a single whole. It is well known to the learned that the end in view constitutes the whole within the cause, and the cause the whole within the effect so that the cause is the outward form given to the end, and the effect the outward form given to the cause. Consequently the effect altogether ceases to exist if you take away the cause, and the cause altogether ceases to exist if you take away the end. Also, the cause comes beneath the end, and the effect beneath the cause. The relationship between the Natural and the Rational is similar to all this.

  
/ 10837  
  

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