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Genesis 30

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1 And Rachel saw that she did not give·​·birth for Jacob, and Rachel was·​·zealous against her sister; and she said to Jacob, Give to me sons; and if not, I am·​·dead.

2 And Jacob was·​·fierce with anger against Rachel, and he said, Am I in· God’s ·stead, who withholds from thee the fruit of the belly?

3 And she said, Behold, my maidservant Bilhah; go·​·in to her, and she shall give·​·birth upon my knees, and I shall be built up, even I, from her.

4 And she gave to him Bilhah her handmaid for a woman, and Jacob came to her.

5 And Bilhah conceived, and gave·​·birth·​·to a son for Jacob.

6 And Rachel said, God has made·​·judgment for me, and also has heard my voice, and has given me a son; therefore she called his name Dan.

7 And she conceived yet·​·again, and Bilhah Rachel’s handmaid gave·​·birth·​·to a second son for Jacob.

8 And Rachel said, With the strugglings of God have I struggled with my sister, also I have prevailed; and she called his name Naphtali.

9 And Leah saw that she had stood still from giving·​·birth; and she took Zilpah her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob for a woman.

10 And Zilpah Leah’s handmaid gave·​·birth·​·to a son for Jacob.

11 And Leah said, A troop comes; and she called his name Gad.

12 And Zilpah Leah’s handmaid gave·​·birth·​·to a second son for Jacob.

13 And Leah said, In my happiness am I; for the daughters will make· me ·happy; and she called his name Asher.

14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found dudaim* in the field, and brought them to Leah his mother. And Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray, of the dudaim of thy son.

15 And she said to her, Is it a·​·little matter that thou hast taken my man, and wouldest thou take also the dudaim of my son? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee tonight in·​·return·​·for the dudaim of thy son.

16 And Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went·​·out to meet him, and said, Thou must come to me, for hiring I have hired thee with the dudaim of my son; and he lay with her that night.

17 And God hearkened to Leah, and she conceived and gave·​·birth·​·to a fifth son for Jacob.

18 And Leah said, God has given my wage, which I gave my handmaid for my man; and she called his name Issachar.

19 And Leah conceived yet·​·again, and gave·​·birth·​·to a sixth son for Jacob.

20 And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good dowry; this time will my man cohabit with me, for I have given·​·birth·​·to six sons for him; and she called his name Zebulun.

21 And afterwards, she gave·​·birth·​·to a daughter, and called her name Dinah.

22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.

23 And she conceived, and gave·​·birth·​·to a son, and said, God has gathered my reproach.

24 And she called his name Joseph, saying, Let Jehovah add to me another son.

25 And it was, as Rachel had given·​·birth·​·to Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, Send· me ·away, and I will go to my place and to my land.

26 Give me my women, and my children, for whom I have served thee, and I will go; for thou knowest my service, with which I have served thee.

27 And Laban said to him, If, I pray, I have found grace in thine eyes, I have experienced it, and Jehovah has blessed me because·​·of thee.

28 And he said, Designate to me thy wage, and I will give it.

29 And he said to him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy livestock has been with me.

30 For thou hadst little before me, and it has broken·​·forth into a multitude, and Jehovah has blessed thee at my foot; and now when shall I also be doing something for my own house?

31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me anything; if thou wilt do for me this word, I will return, and shepherd and keep thy flock.

32 I will pass·​·through all thy flock today, removing from thence every speckled and spotted animal·​·of·​·the·​·flock, and every black animal·​·of·​·the·​·flock among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and these shall be my wage.

33 And my justice shall answer for me on the day of tomorrow, because thou come upon my wage before thee; every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the lambs, stolen is this with me.

34 And Laban said, Behold, would·​·that it be according·​·to thy word.

35 And he removed in that day the he-goats that were mottled and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, all that had white in it, and all the black among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

36 And he set a way of three days between himself and Jacob; and Jacob pastured the remainder of the flock of Laban.

37 And Jacob took for himself a stick of fresh poplar, and hazel and the plane·​·tree, and peeled white peelings on them, laying·​·bare the white that was upon the sticks.

38 And he placed the sticks which he had peeled in the troughs*, in the place of giving· water ·to·​·drink, in which the flock came to drink, opposite the flock; and they grew·​·warm when they came to drink.

39 And the flocks grew·​·warm at the sticks, and the flocks gave·​·birth·​·to mottled, speckled, and spotted.

40 And Jacob separated the lambs, and put the faces of the flock toward the mottled and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his droves for himself alone, and put them not by the flock of Laban.

41 And it was when all the flock that first came·​·together* grew·​·warm, that Jacob set the sticks before the eyes of the flock in the troughs, to grow·​·warm at the sticks.

42 And to the flock that came together later he did not set them; and those that came together later were Laban’s, and those that came together first were Jacob’s.

43 And the man broke·​·forth into a multitude very exceedingly, and he had many flocks, and handmaids, and menservants, and camels, and donkeys.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Arcana Coelestia # 3952

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3952. 'And he lay with her that night' means the actual joining together. This too becomes clear without explanation. The reason why the explanation of the expressions immediately preceding this has for the most part been limited to giving simply the meanings which they have in the internal sense is that they are the kind of things which cannot be understood unless they are presented separately one after another. For the subject is the joining of truth to good and of good to truth, and this joining together of them is the conjugial relationship meant in the spiritual sense; that is, when with man or in the Church the two are so joined together the heavenly marriage is effected. The arcana of this heavenly marriage have been described in the verses above, where they are shown to be the following: As has been stated, the heavenly marriage is a marriage of good to truth and of truth to good. It is not however a marriage between good and truth which both belong to one and the same degree, but between good and truth which belong one to a lower degree, the other to a higher. That is, it is not a marriage between the good of the external man and the truth of the same, but between the good of the external man and the truth of the internal man; or what amounts to the same, it is not a marriage between the good of the natural man and the truth of the same, but between the good of the natural man and the truth of the spiritual man. It is when good and truth of different degrees are joined together that the marriage comes into effect.

[2] The same applies in the internal or spiritual man. The heavenly marriage is not a marriage between the good and the truth present there but between the good of the spiritual man and the truth of the celestial man, for compared with the spiritual man the celestial man belongs to a higher degree. Nor again is the heavenly marriage between the good and the truth present there, but between the good of the celestial man and the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord. From this it is in addition evident that the Divine marriage itself within the Lord is not a marriage between the Divine good and the Divine truth present in His Divine Human but between the Good of the Divine Human and the Divine itself, that is, between the Son and the Father, for the Good of the Lord's Divine Human is that which in the Word is called 'the Son of God' and the Divine itself that which is called 'the Father'.

[3] These are the arcana contained in the internal sense present within the things said about the dudaim. Anyone may see that there is some arcanum hidden within them. For the following details - those about Reuben's finding dudaim in the field and Rachel's desiring them, and, so that she might acquire them, about her agreeing to their husband's lying with Leah, and about Leah's going out to meet Jacob when he came from the field in the evening and her saying that she had hired him for the dudaim - would not have been important enough for them to be mentioned in any historical description in the Word unless something Divine had lain hidden within them. Exactly what that something Divine is nobody can know unless he knows what is meant by the sons of Jacob and by the tribes named after them, and also unless he knows the flow of ideas belonging to the subject dealt with in the internal sense, and on top of this unless he knows what the heavenly marriage is. For that marriage is the subject; that is to say, the joining of the good of the external man to the affection for the truth of the internal man is the subject. But to enable this arcanum to be seen more clearly, let a further illustration be given.

[4] The truths of the external man are the facts and the matters of doctrine which he acquires first through parents and also teachers, after that through books, and at length by his own endeavours. The good of the external man is the pleasure and delight which he finds in those facts and matters of doctrine. Facts which are essentially truths, and delights which are essentially good, are joined together, but these do not constitute the heavenly marriage with him, for even with people who are governed by self-love and love of the world and who are consequently under the influence of evil and falsity, facts, and indeed matters of doctrine, are joined to delights; but they are the delights that go with self-love and love of the world, to which truths are able to be joined. All the same, such people are outside the heavenly marriage. But the heavenly marriage exists in a person when pleasure or delight, which essentially is the good of the external or natural man, stems from spiritual love. That is, the heavenly marriage exists with him when that good stems from love towards the neighbour, towards his country or the general public, towards the Church, towards the Lord's kingdom; and it exists even more fully when it stems from celestial love, which is love to the Lord. For when that spiritual or celestial love passes from the internal or spiritual man into the delight of the external or natural man and fashions that delight, it is then joined to the facts and the matters of doctrine of the external or natural. But such a marriage cannot exist with the evil, only with the good, that is to say, with those who have those things as the end in view. But see what has been said already in 3286, 3288, 3314, 3321, about the influx of the internal or spiritual man into the external or natural man.

[5] Once acquainted with these arcana one may now come to see the overall meaning of the individual expressions, the explanations of which in preceding paragraphs was limited simply to giving their individual meanings in the internal sense, those expressions and their meanings being these: 'Reuben', who means the truth of faith, which is the first stage of regeneration, 'found dudaim'; 'he brought them to Leah his mother' who means the affection for external truth; 'Rachel' who means the affection for interior truth 'desired them', and they were also 'given to her'; Leah therefore 'lay with Jacob her husband' who means the good of truth within the natural man. Likewise the expressions in what comes after this: Sons were born to Jacob by Leah, 'Issachar and Zebulun', by whom things to do with conjugial love and so with the heavenly marriage are meant and represented; and after this, 'Joseph' was born, by whom the Lord's spiritual kingdom - the marriage itself, which is the subject here - is meant and represented.

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