Bible

 

Genesis 33

Studie

   

1 And Jacob lifted·​·up his eyes, and saw, and behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he halved the children over to Leah, and over to Rachel, and over to the two handmaids.

2 And he set the handmaids and their children first, and Leah and her children behind, and Rachel and Joseph behind.

3 And he himself passed·​·on before them, and bowed· himself ·down to the earth seven times, until he approached, even·​·to his brother.

4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

5 And he lifted·​·up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are these to thee? And he said, The children with whom God has graced thy servant.

6 And the handmaids approached, they and their children, and they bowed· themselves ·down.

7 And Leah also and her children approached, and they bowed· themselves ·down; and afterwards Joseph and Rachel approached, and bowed· themselves ·down.

8 And he said, Who to thee are all these camps whom I encounter? And he said, To find grace in the eyes of my lord.

9 And Esau said, I have much, my brother; be to thee what is to thee.

10 And Jacob said, No, I pray, if, I pray, I have found grace in thine eyes, then take my gift from my hand; for because that I have seen thy faces as seeing the faces of God, and thou hast been·​·well·​·pleased with me.

11 Take, I pray, my blessing that is brought to thee; because God has been·​·gracious·​·to me, and because I have all. And he urged him, and he took it.

12 And he said, Let us journey and go, and I will go in·​·front·​·of thee.

13 And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flock and the herd with me are sucklings, and if they push· them ·on in one day, then all the flock will·​·die.

14 Let my lord, I pray, cross·​·over before his servant, and I will proceed* slowly as·​·to the foot steps of the work* that is before me, and to the foot steps of the children, until I come to my lord to Seir.

15 And Esau said, Let me now place with thee some from the people who are with me. And he said, Why is this? Let me find grace in the eyes of my lord.

16 And Esau returned in that day to his way, to Seir.

17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built for himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock; therefore he called the name of the place Succoth.

18 And Jacob came to Salem*, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, in his coming from Paddan-aram, and encamped to the faces of the city.

19 And he bought the part of the field, where he had stretched·​·out his tent, from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred kesitah.

20 And he set·​·up there an altar, and he called it El-Elohe-Israel.

   


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

Komentář

 

Two

  

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.