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Amos 9

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1 I have seen the Lord standing by the altar, and He saith: `Smite the knob, and the thresholds shake, And cut them off by the head -- all of them, And their posterity with a sword I do slay, Not flee to them doth the fleer, Nor escape to them doth a fugitive.

2 If they dig through into sheol, From thence doth My hand take them, And if they go up the heavens, From thence I cause them to come down.

3 And if they be hid in the top of Carmel, From thence I search out, and have taken them, And if they be hid from Mine eyes in the bottom of the sea, From thence I command the serpent, And it hath bitten them.

4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies, From thence I command the sword, And it hath slain them, And I have set Mine eye on them for evil, And not for good.

5 And [it is] the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, Who is striking against the land, and it melteth, And mourned have all the inhabitants in it, And come up as a flood hath all of it, And it hath sunk -- like the flood of Egypt.

6 Who is building in the heavens His upper chambers; As to His troop, Upon earth He hath founded it, Who is calling for the waters of the sea, And poureth them out on the face of the land, Jehovah [is] His name.

7 As sons of Cushim are ye not to Me? O sons of Israel -- an affirmation of Jehovah. Israel did I not bring up out of the land of Egypt? And the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir?

8 Lo, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah [are] on the sinful kingdom, And I have destroyed it from off the face of the ground, Only, I destroy not utterly the house of Jacob, An affirmation of Jehovah.

9 For lo, I am commanding, And I have shaken among all the nations the house of Israel, As [one] doth shake with a sieve, And there falleth not a grain [to] the earth.

10 By sword die do all sinners of My people, Who are saying, `Not overtake, or go before, For our sakes, doth evil.'

11 In that day I raise the tabernacle of David, that is fallen, And I have repaired their breaches, And its ruins I do raise up, And I have built it up as in days of old.

12 So that they possess the remnant of Edom, And all the nations on whom My name is called, An affirmation of Jehovah -- doer of this.

13 Lo, days are coming -- an affirmation of Jehovah, And come nigh hath the ploughman to the reaper, And the treader of grapes to the scatterer of seed, And the mountains have dropt juice, And all the hills do melt.

14 And I have turned back [to] the captivity of My people Israel, And they have built desolate cities, and inhabited, And have planted vineyards, and drunk their wine, And made gardens, and eaten their fruit.

15 And I have planted them on their own ground, And they are not plucked up any more from off their own ground, That I have given to them, said Jehovah thy God!

   

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Jacob or Israel (the man)

  

Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to meet Esau, and the angel tells him that his name will be changed. After he is reconciled with Esau, they go their separate ways. Jacob moves to Shechem and then on to Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. The Lord appears to him there, renews the covenant He first made with Abraham and again tells him that his name will be Israel (Genesis 35). The story goes on to tell of Benjamin's birth and Rachel's death in bearing him, and then of Jacob's return to Isaac and Isaac's death and burial. But at that point the main thread of the story leaves Israel and turns to Joseph, and Israel is hardly mentioned until after Joseph has risen to power in Egypt, has revealed himself to his brothers and tells them to bring all of their father's household down to Egypt. There, before Israel dies, he blesses Joseph's sons, plus all his own sons. After his death he is returned to the land of Canaan for burial in Abraham's tomb. In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob represents truth, and Esau good. Jacob's stay in Padan-Aram, and the wealth he acquired there, represent learning the truths of scripture, just as we learn when we read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The change of name from Jacob to Israel represents the realization that what we learn should not simply be knowledge, but should be the rules of our life, to be followed by action. This action is the good that Esau has represented in the story up to that time, but after the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau, Jacob as Israel now represents the truth and the good, together. It is interesting that even after his name change Jacob is rarely called Israel. Sometimes he is called one and sometimes the other, and sometimes he is called both Jacob and Israel in the same verse (Genesis 46:2, 5, & 8 also Psalm 14:7). This is because Jacob represents the external person and Israel the internal person, and even after the internal person comes into being, we spend much of our lives living on the external level.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4274, 4292, 4570, 5595, 6225, 6256, Genesis 2:5, 46:8)