4298. 'And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel' means a state of temptations. This is clear from the train of thought, for in former times names were given to places where some special incident took place, and those names served to mean that incident which took place there, and the state associated with it, 340, 2643, 3422. To this place a name was given which meant a state of temptations, because it is a state of temptations that is described here by Jacob's wrestling and contending. In the original language 'Peniel' means 'the face of God', and the fact that 'seeing the face of God' means suffering the severest temptations will be explained in what follows immediately below.

1265. THOSE BEFORE THE FLOOD WHO PERISHED

At some height overhead many spirits were present who flowed into my thoughts and held them so to speak in bonds, so that I was very much in obscurity. They were pressing down on me quite strongly. The spirits around me were similarly held by them so to speak in bonds, and so were able to think little apart from that which flowed in from those overhead, and this was enough to make them angry. I was told that those overhead were people who had lived before the Flood, though they were not from those called Nephilim who perished, for their power of persuasion was not so strong as the latter's.