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Exodus 9

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1 And the Lord said to Moses: Go in to Pharao, and speak to him: Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let my people Go to sacrifice to me.

2 But if thou refuse, and withhold them still:

3 Behold my hand shall be upon thy fields: and a very grievous murrain upon thy horses, and asses, and camels, and oxen, and sheep.

4 And the Lord will make a wonderful difference between the possessions of Israel and the possessions of the Egyptians, that nothing at all shall die of those things that belong to the children of Israel.

5 And the Lord appointed a time, saying: To morrow will the Lord do this thing in the land.

6 The Lord therefore did this thing the next day: and all the beasts of the Egyptians died, but of the beasts of the children of Israel there died not one.

7 And Pharao sent to see: and there was not any thing dead of that which Israel possessed. And Pharao's heart was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

8 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Take to you handfuls of ashes out of the chimney, and let Moses sprinkle it in the air in the presence of Pharao.

9 And be there dust upon all the land of Egypt: for there shall be boils and swelling blains both in men and beasts in the whole land of Egypt.

10 And they took ashes out of the chimney, and stood before Pharao, and Moses sprinkled it in the air: and there came boils with swelling blains in men and beasts.

11 Neither could the magicians stand before Moses for the boils that were upon them, and in all the land of Egypt.

12 And the Lord hardened Pharao's heart, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

13 And the Lord said to Moses: Arise in the morning, and stand before Pharao, and thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go to sacrifice to me.

14 For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thy heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people: that thou mayst know there is none like me in all the earth.

15 For now I will stretch out my hand to strike thee, and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt perish from the earth.

16 And therefore have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee, and my name may be spoken of throughout all the earth.

17 Dost thou yet hold back my people: and wilt thou not let them go?

18 Behold I will cause it to rain to morrow at this same hour, an exceeding great hail: such as hath not been in Egypt from the day that it was founded, until this present time.

19 Send therefore now presently, and gather together thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field: for men and beasts, and all things that shall be found abroad, and not gathered together out of the fields, which the hail shall fall upon, shall die.

20 He that feared the word of the Lord among Pharao's servants, made his servants and his cattle flee into houses:

21 And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand towards heaven, that there may be hail in the whole land of Egypt, upon men, and upon beasts, and upon every herb of the field in the land of Egypt.

22 And Moses stretched forth his rod towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning running along the ground: and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt.

24 And the hail and fire mixed with it drove on together: and it was of so great bigness, as never before was seen in the whole land of Egypt since that nation was founded.

25 And the hail destroyed through all the land of Egypt all things that were in the fields, both man and beast: and the hail smote every herb of the field, and it broke every tree of the country.

26 Only in the land of Gessen, where the children of Israel were, the hail fell not.

27 And Pharao sent and called Moses and Aaron, saying to them: I have sinned this time also; the Lord is just: I and my people are wicked.

28 Pray ye to the Lord, that the thunderings of God and the hail may cease: that I may let you go, and that you may stay here no longer.

29 Moses said: As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will stretch forth my hands to the Lord, and the thunders shall cease, and the hail shall be no more: that thou mayst know that the earth is the Lord's.

30 But I know that neither thou, nor thy servants do yet fear the Lord God.

31 The flax therefore and the barley were hurt, because the barley was green, and the flax was now boiled:

32 But the wheat, and other winter corn were not hurt, because they were lateward.

33 And when Moses was gone from Pharao out of the city, he stretched forth his hands to the Lord: and the thunders and the hail ceased, neither did there drop any more rain upon the earth.

34 And Pharao seeing that the rain and the hail, and the thunders were ceased, increased his sin.

35 And his heart was hardened, and the heart of his servants, and it was made exceeding hard: neither did he let the children of Israel go, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses.

   

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Jacob or Israel (the man)

  

Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to meet Esau, and the angel tells him that his name will be changed. After he is reconciled with Esau, they go their separate ways. Jacob moves to Shechem and then on to Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. The Lord appears to him there, renews the covenant He first made with Abraham and again tells him that his name will be Israel (Genesis 35). The story goes on to tell of Benjamin's birth and Rachel's death in bearing him, and then of Jacob's return to Isaac and Isaac's death and burial. But at that point the main thread of the story leaves Israel and turns to Joseph, and Israel is hardly mentioned until after Joseph has risen to power in Egypt, has revealed himself to his brothers and tells them to bring all of their father's household down to Egypt. There, before Israel dies, he blesses Joseph's sons, plus all his own sons. After his death he is returned to the land of Canaan for burial in Abraham's tomb. In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob represents truth, and Esau good. Jacob's stay in Padan-Aram, and the wealth he acquired there, represent learning the truths of scripture, just as we learn when we read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The change of name from Jacob to Israel represents the realization that what we learn should not simply be knowledge, but should be the rules of our life, to be followed by action. This action is the good that Esau has represented in the story up to that time, but after the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau, Jacob as Israel now represents the truth and the good, together. It is interesting that even after his name change Jacob is rarely called Israel. Sometimes he is called one and sometimes the other, and sometimes he is called both Jacob and Israel in the same verse (Genesis 46:2, 5, & 8 also Psalm 14:7). This is because Jacob represents the external person and Israel the internal person, and even after the internal person comes into being, we spend much of our lives living on the external level.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4274, 4292, 4570, 5595, 6225, 6256, Genesis 2:5, 46:8)