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Genesis 37

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1 And Jacob dwelt in the land in which his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought to his father their evil report.

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors.

4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.

6 And he said to them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:

7 For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves stood around and made obeisance to my sheaf.

8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words.

9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more: and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

10 And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said to him, what is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

11 And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

12 And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

13 And Israel said to Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send thee to them. And he said to him, Here am I.

14 And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it is well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him from the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

15 And a certain man found him, and behold he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?

16 And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.

17 And the man said, They have departed hence: for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren and found them in Dothan.

18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him.

19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer is coming.

20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

21 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him from their hands: and said, Let us not kill him.

22 And Reuben said to them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might deliver him from their hands, to bring him back to his father.

23 And it came to pass when Joseph had come to his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him.

24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty; there was no water in it.

25 And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry them down to Egypt.

26 And Judah said to his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood.

27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh: and his brethren were content.

28 Then there passed by Midianites, merchants; and they drew and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

29 And Reuben returned to the pit; and behold, Joseph was not in the pit: and he rent his clothes.

30 And he returned to his brethren, and said, The child is not: and I, whither shall I go?

31 And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood:

32 And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it is thy son's coat or not.

33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him: Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave to my son mourning: Thus his father wept for him.

36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the guard.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4692

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4692. 'And they hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words' means still greater contempt and aversion on account of that declaration of truth, namely concerning the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'adding' as making still greater; from the meaning of 'hating' as holding in contempt and turning away in aversion, dealt with above in 4681; from the meaning of 'a dream' as a declaration, also dealt with above, in 4682, 4685; and from the meaning of 'words' as truths. The reason 'words' means truths is that every word in heaven is received from the Lord, and therefore 'words' in the internal sense means truths, while 'the Word' in general means all Divine Truth.

[2] The subject in particular is that the Church which has separated faith from charity holds in utter contempt and turns away in utter aversion from the highest truth of all - the truth that the Lord's Human is Divine. All who belonged to the Ancient Church and did not separate charity from faith believed that the God of the whole world was a Divine Man, and that He was the Divine Being (Esse), which also was why they called Him Jehovah. They knew of Him as such from the most ancient people, and also because He had appeared to many of their brethren as Man. They also knew that all the ritual and external practices of their Church represented Him. But those who adhered to faith separated from charity were unable to share that belief of those who did not separate faith from charity because they could not grasp how the Human could ever be Divine, or that Divine love could make it such. For anything they did not grasp with some idea acquired through their bodily senses they considered to be worthless. This is what faith separated from charity is like; for with those people the internal degree of perception is closed because nothing intermediate exists to enable one to flow into the other.

[3] The Jewish Church which came next did in fact believe that Jehovah was Man as well as God, because He had appeared to Moses and the Prophets as a human being, on account of which they called every angel who appeared Jehovah. Yet their idea of Him was no different from ideas the gentiles had of their gods, though they preferred Jehovah God because He could work miracles, 4299. They were unaware of the fact that this Jehovah was the Lord in the Word, 2921, 3035, and that His Divine Human was represented in all their religious observances. They had no other idea of the Messiah or Christ than one who would be a very great prophet, greater than Moses, and a very great king, greater than David, who would lead them into the land of Canaan to the accompaniment of amazing miracles. Of His heavenly kingdom they did not wish to hear anything at all, for the reason that they grasped none but worldly ideas since they were people separated from charity.

[4] The Christian Church, it is true, does in its religious services adore the Lord's Human as one that is Divine. It does so in particular in the Holy Supper, because He has said that the bread there is His body, and the wine His blood. But they do not in their doctrine make His Human Divine, for they make a distinction between His Divine nature and His human nature. Also, they make this distinction because the Church has turned aside from charity to faith, and at length to faith separated from charity. And failing to acknowledge that the Lord's Human is Divine, many go wrong and in their heart deny Him, 4689. Yet the truth of the matter is that the Lord's Divine Human is the Divine Manifestation of the Divine Being, dealt with above in 4687, and that He Himself is the Divine Being; for Divine Being and Divine Manifestation make one, as the Lord also plainly teaches in John,

Jesus said to Philip, Have I been so long a time with you and you do not know Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me. John 14:9-11.

The same teaching occurs elsewhere. The Divine Manifestation is the Divine itself proceeding from the Divine Being and in image is Man, since heaven, of which He is its all, represents the Grand Man, as stated above in 4687 and shown at the ends of chapters where the correspondence with heaven of everything in the human being is dealt with. The Lord, it is true, was born as any human being is born, and received an infirm human from His mother; but the Lord cast out this human completely, to the point of His being no longer Mary's son, and made the Human within Himself Divine, which is what is meant by His being glorified. He also showed Peter, James, and John that He was a Divine Man, when He was transfigured.

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