Genesis 32
1
And Jacob went on his way; and the angels of God met him.
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And when Jacob saw them he said, This is the camp of God. And he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
3
And Jacob sent messengers before his face to Esau his brother, into the land of Seir, the fields of Edom.
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And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak to my lord, to Esau: Thy servant Jacob speaks thus -- With Laban have I sojourned and tarried until now;
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and I have oxen, and asses, sheep, and bondmen, and bondwomen; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thine eyes.
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And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother, to Esau; and he also is coming to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.
7
Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and was distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and the cattle and the camels, into two troops.
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And he said, If Esau come to the one troop and smite it, then the other troop which is left shall escape.
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And Jacob said, God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Jehovah, who saidst unto me: Return into thy country and to thy kindred, and I will do thee good,
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-- I am too small for all the loving-kindness and all the faithfulness that thou hast shewn unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two troops.
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Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, [and] the mother with the children.
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And thou saidst, I will certainly deal well with thee, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
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And he lodged there that night; and took of what came to his hand a gift for Esau his brother --
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two hundred she-goats, and twenty he-goats; two hundred ewes, and twenty rams;
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thirty milch camels with their colts; forty kine, and ten bulls; twenty she-asses, and ten young asses.
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And he delivered [them] into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself; and he said to his servants, Go on before me, and put a space between drove and drove.
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And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meets thee, and asks thee, saying, Whose art thou, and where goest thou, and whose are these before thee?
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-- then thou shalt say, Thy servant Jacob's: it is a gift sent to my lord, to Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.
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And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, According to this word shall ye speak to Esau when ye find him.
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And, moreover, ye shall say, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will propitiate him with the gift that goes before me, and afterwards I will see his face: perhaps he will accept me.
21
And the gift went over before him; and he himself lodged that night in the camp.
22
And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok;
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and he took them and led them over the river, and led over what he had.
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And Jacob remained alone; and a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn.
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And when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the joint of his thigh; and the joint of Jacob's thigh was dislocated as he wrestled with him.
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And he said, Let me go, for the dawn ariseth. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.
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And he said to him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
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And he said, Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast wrestled with God, and with men, and hast prevailed.
29
And Jacob asked and said, Tell [me], I pray thee, thy name. And he said, How is it that thou askest after my name? And he blessed him there.
30
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel -- For I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved.
31
And as he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him; and he limped upon his hip.
32
Therefore the children of Israel do not eat of the sinew that is over the joint of the thigh, to this day; because he touched the joint of Jacob's thigh -- the sinew.
Arcana Coelestia # 3293
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.
