7042. 'And Jehovah came to meet him' means opposition. This is clear from the meaning of 'coming to meet' as opposition, opposition to the establishment of any Church among that nation. Opposition to the Divine is what is meant when it says that Jehovah came to meet him. To judge from the sense of the letter it seems as though Jehovah or the Divine was the opposer, since it says 'Jehovah came to meet him'. But the internal sense is that it was an opposition to the Divine; for the Divine never places Himself in opposition to anyone. Rather it is the person or nation who place themselves in opposition to the Divine; and when they do so it seems, because they cannot abide the Divine, as though there were resistance from the Divine. What this is like may be recognized from those who enter the next life and wish to enter heaven, yet are not the kind of people who can stay there. When their wish is granted and they are on their way, near the entrance to heaven, they seem to themselves to be like monsters and begin to feel pain and torment because they cannot abide the truth and goodness that are there. They think that heaven and the Divine have placed themselves in opposition to them, when in fact they are the ones, having an opposite attitude of mind, who bring it on themselves. From this one may also see that the Divine does not place Himself in opposition to anyone, but that it is a person who places himself in opposition to the Divine.

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)