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Genesis 50

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1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. And the physicians embalmed Israel.

3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favour in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

5 My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die; in my grave which I have dug myself in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. And now, let me go up, I pray thee, that I may bury my father; and I will come again.

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

7 And Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the bondmen of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

8 and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house; only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and the camp was very great.

10 And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan; and there they lamented with a great and very grievous lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father of seven days.

11 And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning of the Egyptians. Therefore the name of it was called Abel-Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

12 And his sons did to him according as he had commanded them;

13 and his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah which Abraham had bought along with the field, for a possession of a sepulchre, of Ephron the Hittite, opposite to Mamre.

14 And, after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that had gone up with him to bury his father.

15 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, If now Joseph should be hostile to us, and should indeed requite us all the evil that we did to him!

16 And they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Thy father commanded before he died, saying,

17 Thus shall ye speak to Joseph: Oh forgive, I pray thee, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin! for they did evil to thee. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and said, Behold, we are thy bondmen.

19 And Joseph said to them, Fear not: am I then in the place of God?

20 Ye indeed meant evil against me: God meant it for good, in order that he might do as [it is] this day, to save a great people alive.

21 And now, fear not: I will maintain you and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke consolingly to them.

22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years.

23 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third [generation]; the sons also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born on Joseph's knees.

24 And Joseph said to his brethren, I die; and God will certainly visit you, and bring you up out of this land, into the land that he swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

25 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will certainly visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones hence.

26 And Joseph died, a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him; and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4447

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4447. 'Hamor spoke to them, saying' means the good of the Church among the Ancients. This is clear from the representation of 'Hamor' as that which was received from the Ancients, dealt with in 4431, namely the good of the Church received from them, for the good of the Church is 'a father', and the truth derived from that good, meant here by 'Shechem', is 'a son' - which also is why 'father' in the Word means good, and 'son' truth. The expression 'the good of the Church among the Ancients' is used here, not the good of the Ancient Church, for the reason that the phrase 'the Church among the Ancients' is used to mean the Church that descended from the Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood, whereas the Ancient Church is used to mean the Church which came into existence after the Flood. Those two Churches have been dealt with several times previous to this, when it has been shown that the Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood was celestial whereas the Ancient Church which came into existence after the Flood was spiritual. The difference between the two has also been dealt with often.

[2] Remnants of the Most Ancient Church which was celestial were still in existence in the land of Canaan, especially among those in that land who were called Hittites and Hivites. The reason why such remnants did not exist anywhere else was that the Most Ancient Church, which was called Man or Adam, 478, 479, existed in the land of Canaan, where the garden of Eden, which meant the intelligence and wisdom of the members of that Church, 100, 1588, and the trees in it their perception, 103, 2163, 2722, 2972, was therefore situated. And because intelligence and wisdom were meant by that garden or paradise the Church itself is also meant by it. And because the Church is meant, so also is heaven; and because heaven is meant, so also in the highest sense is the Lord. So it is that in the highest sense the land of Canaan also means the Lord, in the relative sense heaven and also the Church, and in the personal sense the member of the Church, 1413, 1437, 1607, 3038, 3481, 3705. So it is too that the word 'land' standing by itself in the Word has a similar meaning, 566, 662, 1066, 1067, 1413, 1607, 3355; while a new heaven and a new earth mean a new Church, internally and externally, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 3355 (end). The Most Ancient Church was situated in the land of Canaan, see 567, and it was from this that places there became representative. It explains why Abram was commanded to go there, and also why the land was given to his descendants from Jacob, namely that the representatives connected with the places which were to be used in the composition of the Word might be perpetuated, 3686. This was why every place in that land, including mountains and rivers, and also all the borders surrounding it, became representative, 1585, 1866, 4240.

[3] From all these considerations one may see what the expression 'Church among the Ancients' is used to mean, namely remnants of the Most Ancient Church. And because those remnants existed among the Hittites and Hivites, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their wives, acquired a burial-place among the Hittites in their land, Genesis 23:1-end; Genesis 49:29-32; 50:13; and Joseph among the Hivites, Joshua 24:32. Hamor, Shechem's father, represented the remnants of that Church, and as a consequence means the good of the Church among the Ancients and therefore the origin of interior truth from a Divine stock, 4399. What the difference is between the Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood and the Ancient Church which came into existence after the Flood, see 597, 607, 608, 640, 641, 765, 784, 895, 920, 1114-1128, 1238, 1327, 2896, 2897.

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