Bible

 

Genesis 35

Studie

   

1 And God said to Jacob, Arise, go·​·up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar to God, who was seen of thee when thou didst run·​·away from before Esau thy brother.

2 And Jacob said to his house, and to all who were with him, Remove the gods of the foreigner which are in the midst of you, and clean yourselves, and change your raiment;

3 and let us arise, and go·​·up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my adversity, and was with·​·me in the way which I walked.

4 And they gave to Jacob all the gods of the foreigner which were in their hand, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob concealed them under the oak which was by Shechem.

5 And they journeyed; and a terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

6 And Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, this is Bethel, he and all the people that were with him.

7 And he built there an altar, and called the place El-bethel*; for there the gods* were revealed to him when he ran·​·away from before his brother.

8 And Deborah, the nurse of Rebekah, died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under the oak; and he called the name of it Allon-bacuth.

9 And God was seen of Jacob yet·​·again when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him.

10 And God said to him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; and He called his name Israel.

11 And God said to him, I am God Shaddai; be·​·fruitful and multiply; a nation and an assembly of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall go·​·forth from thy loins.

12 And the land which I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.

13 And God went·​·up from over him in the place where He spoke with him.

14 And Jacob set·​·up a pillar in the place in which He spoke with him, a pillar of stone; and he poured·​·out a poured·​·offering on it, and poured oil on it.

15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel.

16 And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was still a tract of land to come toward Ephrath; and Rachel gave·​·birth, and it was hard for her’ in giving·​·birth.

17 And it was, when it was hard for her in her giving·​·birth, that the midwife said to her, Fear not, for this also is a son for thee.

18 And it was, when her soul was going·​·out that she was·​·about·​·to·​·die; and she called his name Benoni; and his father called him Benjamin.

19 And Rachel died, and was buried in the way toward Ephrath, this is Bethlehem.

20 And Jacob set·​·up a pillar over her grave; this is the pillar of the grave of Rachel even·​·until today.

21 And Israel journeyed, and stretched·​·out his tent beyond the tower of Eder.

22 And it was, when Israel inhabited this land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah the concubine of his father, and Israel heard. And the sons of Jacob were twelve:

23 the sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun;

24 the sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin;

25 and the sons of Bilhah Rachel’s handmaid, Dan and Naphtali;

26 and the sons of Zilpah Leah’s handmaid, Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, who was·​·born* to him in Paddan-aram.

27 And Jacob came to Isaac his father to Mamre Kiriath-arba, this is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned*

28 And the days of Isaac were a hundred years and eighty years.

29 And Isaac expired and died, and was gathered to his people, old and sated of days; and Esau and Jacob his sons buried him.

   


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

Komentář

 

Abraham

  
Représentation d'Abraham, by Joseph Villiet

Abraham (or Abram, as he was named in the beginning of his story) was the ancestor of all the Children of Israel, through his son Isaac, and of the Arabs, through his son Ishmael.

Abraham represents the Divine good or love. His story foreshadows the life of Jesus, and our spiritual lives, too.

His life can be usefully seen as being divided into three periods. The first period includes the unknown early years from his birth in Ur, and his later move to Haran with his father Terah. The second section starts with Abram's being called by Jehovah to go to Canaan. It includes the adventures he had there, and continues until the events of the 17th chapter of Genesis where he is said to be 99 years old, rich, and powerful - but without a son by his wife Sarai. Once again the Lord appears to him, promises that his progeny will become a great nation, institutes the rite of circumcision, and changes his name to Abraham, adding the "ah" sound from Jehovah. The third and last period of his life sees the birth of Isaac, the death of Sarah (whose name was also changed), and the finding of a wife for Isaac from among Abraham's relatives back in Mesopotamia. Abraham is said to be 175 years old when he dies, as recorded in the 25th chapter of Genesis.

What we are here interested in is the deep representation of Abraham because he prophesies or foreshadows the inmost part of Jesus' life after He is born to Mary centuries after the man Abraham lived on the earth. Abraham represents the Divine good or love. The internal sense of the Word tells us that God himself provided the life into an ovum within Mary, so she could provide a natural body and a natural heredity from the Jewish religion, while the soul of Jesus was kept as a direct possessor of divine life. During Jesus' early life, probably up to adolescence, Jesus lived out those representative actions of Abraham in the innermost parts of his mind and spirit. Abraham as he pastured his sheep and ran his large household had no idea at all that this was true, and early in Jesus' life He didn't realize it either. There must have been perceptions as Jesus grew up, witness his visit to the temple when He was 12, but not a complete understanding until He was fully grown. And further, it isn't only Abraham. When Abraham dies, the representation attaches to Isaac, who represents the rational level of the mind, and then to both Jacob and Esau who represent the natural mind as to truth and good in the mind respectively. And then the trials of the twelve tribes, the kings, and all the sayings of the prophets become that same representation. So Jesus could say to the two disciples that He met on the road to Emmaus, "O fools and slow of heart... and beginning at Moses and all the Prophets He expounded to them in all the scriptures all the things concerning Himself." (The following references are chronologic as Abraham gets older, and are in biblical sequence.) And furthermore, the progress of mental and spiritual life in each one of us is a dim and finite image of that represented by Abraham's life if, that is, we are trying to follow the Lord's laws and precepts to love one another. We too have within us a journey to the land of Canaan, a hardworking sojourn in Egypt, a struggle in the wilderness, and a Saul, a David, and an Ahab. We have our home-grown Amalekites and Philistines. The whole of the Old Testament is a picture of how our spiritual life works.

In Genesis 20:7, Abraham signifies celestial truth, or doctrine from a celestial origin. (Arcana Coelestia 2533)

In Genesis 12:4, As ABRAHAM he represents the Lord as to His Human and Divine Essence; as ABRAM he represents the Lord as to His human essence only. (Arcana Coelestia 1426)

In Genesis 17:5, The name was changed by adding the letter H, so that the Divine Human could he represented, for H is the only letter which involves the Divine: it means I AM, or BEING. (Arcana Coelestia 1416[2])

(Odkazy: Genesis 17, 25)