Bible

 

Genesis 47

Studie

   

1 And Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, have come out·​·of the land of Canaan; and behold they are in the land of Goshen.

2 And from a part* of his brothers he took five men, and placed them before Pharaoh.

3 And Pharaoh said to his brothers, What are your deeds? And they said to Pharaoh, Thy servants are a shepherd of the flock, both we and our fathers.

4 And they said to Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land have we come; for there is no pasture for the flock which belongs to thy servants; for the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan; and now, we pray, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

5 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brothers have come to thee;

6 the land of Egypt, it is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brothers dwell; let them dwell in the land of Goshen; and if thou knowest, and there·​·be among them, men of force, then set them as princes over the livestock that belong to me.

7 And Joseph brought Jacob his father, and stood him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

8 And Pharaoh said to Jacob, How·​·many are the days of the years of thy life?

9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojournings are thirty and a hundred years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.

10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went·​·out from before Pharaoh.

11 And Joseph had his father and his brothers dwell, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.

12 And Joseph sustained his father, and his brothers, and all the house of his father, with bread, according·​·to the mouth of the infant.

13 And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very heavy, and the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan labored in the faces of the famine.

14 And Joseph collected all the silver that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the purchase which they purchased; and Joseph brought the silver to the house of Pharaoh.

15 And the silver was finished from the land of Egypt, and from the land of Canaan, and all Egypt came to Joseph, saying, Give us bread, for why should we die in·​·front·​·of thee for the silver is·​·gone?

16 And Joseph said, Give your livestock; and I will Give you for your livestock, if silver be·​·gone.

17 And they brought their livestock to Joseph; and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the livestock of the flock, and for the livestock of the herd, and for the donkeys; and he provided* them with bread in exchange for all their livestock in this year.

18 And when this year finished, they came to him in the second year, and said to him, We will not conceal from my lord that the silver is finished; and the livestock of the beast is to my lord; nothing is·​·left before my lord except our body and our ground.

19 Why should· we ·die before thine eyes, both we and our ground? buy us and our ground with bread, and we shall be, and our ground, servants to Pharaoh; and give seed, that we may live, and not die, and the ground be· not ·desolate.

20 And Joseph bought all the ground of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was strengthened upon them; and the land was Pharaoh’s.

21 And the people, he had them cross to the cities, from the edge of the border of Egypt even·​·to its other edge.

22 Only the ground of the priests bought he not; for a stated portion was for the priests from Pharaoh, and they ate their stated portion which Pharaoh had given to them; Therefore they sold not their ground.

23 And Joseph said to the people, Behold I have bought you this day and your ground for Pharaoh; behold here is seed for you, and you shall sow the ground.

24 And it shall be in the increase and you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four parts* shall be for you, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for those in your houses, and for food for your infants.

25 And they said, Thou hast made us live; let us find grace in the eyes of my lord, and we will be servants of Pharaoh.

26 And Joseph set it for a statute even·​·to this day, concerning the ground of Egypt, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the ground of the priests, theirs alone was not for Pharaoh.

27 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they had· a ·possession in it, and were·​·fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly.

28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; and it was that the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were seven years and forty and a hundred years.

29 And the days of Israel came·​·near to die; and he called his son Joseph, and said to him, If, I pray, I have found grace in thine eyes, set, I pray, thy hand under my thigh, and do mercy and truth with·​·me; bury me not, I pray, in Egypt.

30 And I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out·​·of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do according·​·to thy word.

31 And he said, Promise to me; and he promised to him. Israel bowed· himself ·down on the head of the bed.

   


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

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 6071

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

6071. 'And placed them before Pharaoh' means an introduction into factual knowledge. This is clear from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as factual knowledge in general, dealt with in 5799, 6015. An introduction is meant by 'placing before him', for the intention behind his presentation of them was so that he might introduce them, that is, the truths of the Church, since these are meant by 'the sons of Jacob'. Regarding the need for the truths known to the Church to be introduced into the Church's factual knowledge, see 6004, 6023, 6052; but as this is a subject that is not known about at the present day, let some more light be shed on it.

[2] The facts known to the Church are at the present day the things stated in the literal sense of the Word. Unless truths from the internal sense are introduced into those facts the mind can be misled into all kinds of heresy; but once truths have been introduced into them the mind cannot be misled into heresies. For example the person who has learned from the literal sense of the Word statements that God can be angry, punish, lead into temptations, cast into hell, and do evil can be misled into false ideas about God. He may be led to think that Goodness itself, which is what God is, can be the source even of evil, thus the opposite of what He is, when in fact good comes from good, and evil from evil. But this fact [which he knows from the literal sense] takes on a different appearance if interior truths are introduced into it, such as the truth that evil in a person is what creates anger in him, leads into temptations, punishes, casts into hell, and constantly brings forth further evils. There is also the truth that the situation with these woes is like the laws that countries have; the laws come from the monarch, but the miseries that come with punishment are not attributable to the monarch but to those who commit evils.

[3] Then there is the truth that the hells are the source of all evil and are allowed to be the source of it because on man's account it cannot be otherwise. For he is sunk in evil and his life arises out of it, and therefore unless he is left in evil he cannot be in freedom, or thus be reformed. Even so, nothing but good comes from God, for to the extent a person allows, God turns that evil towards what is good.

[4] There is too the truth that the very general outlines of belief must come first, after which they must be filled out with individual truths. This is so with the general piece of knowledge that all things which happen come without exception from God, including the miseries that punishment brings. In what way those miseries come from Him has to be learned subsequently, as also do the nature and source of what happens by permission.

[5] There is likewise the truth that all worship of God inevitably has its beginning in holy fear, which holds within it the belief that God rewards good people and punishes the bad. Simple people and young children must believe this because they have no understanding as yet of permission; and their belief is in keeping with the Lord's words,

Rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna. Matthew 10:28.

So although to begin with it is out of fear that they do not dare to do evil, love accompanied by good is gradually introduced, and then they start to know and perceive that nothing but good comes from God, and that evil comes from themselves; then at length that all evil comes from hell.

[6] Furthermore those in heaven perceive that nothing but good comes from God; but those in hell say that everything evil comes from God because He permits it and does not take it away. But in reply to this those of them who are in the world of spirits are told that if evil were taken away from them they would not possess any life; and neither would anyone in the world who is engrossed in evil. They are also told that the evil within them punishes itself in accordance with the law, and that the miseries that punishment brings eventually causes them to refrain from the doing of evils, also that the punishment of evil persons is the protection of the good.

[7] Added to all this is the consideration that people engrossed in evil, also those whose worship is external devoid of anything internal, as that of the Jews was, must live altogether in fear of God and in a belief that He is the one who punishes; for their fear of God can lead them to do what is good, but love never can. When these and many other truths are introduced into that known fact [drawn from the literal sense of the Word] it takes on a completely different appearance. It becomes like a transparent vase containing truths which shine through and make the vase look like nothing else than a single and general body of truth.

  
/ 10837  
  

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