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Genesis 34

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1 And Dinah, daughter of Leah, whom she hath borne to Jacob, goeth out to look on the daughters of the land,

2 and Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, a prince of the land, seeth her, and taketh her, and lieth with her, and humbleth her;

3 and his soul cleaveth to Dinah, daughter of Jacob, and he loveth the young person, and speaketh unto the heart of the young person.

4 And Shechem speaketh unto Hamor his father, saying, `Take for me this damsel for a wife.'

5 And Jacob hath heard that he hath defiled Dinah his daughter, and his sons were with his cattle in the field, and Jacob kept silent till their coming.

6 And Hamor, father of Shechem, goeth out unto Jacob to speak with him;

7 and the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard, and the men grieve themselves, and it [is] very displeasing to them, for folly he hath done against Israel, to lie with the daughter of Jacob -- and so it is not done.

8 And Hamor speaketh with them, saying, `Shechem, my son, his soul hath cleaved to your daughter; give her, I pray you, to him for a wife,

9 and join ye in marriage with us; your daughters ye give to us, and our daughters ye take to yourselves,

10 and with us ye dwell, and the land is before you; dwell ye and trade [in] it, and have possessions in it.'

11 And Shechem saith unto her father, and unto her brethren, `Let me find grace in your eyes, and that which ye say unto me, I give;

12 multiply on me exceedingly dowry and gift, and I give as ye say unto me, and give to me the young person for a wife.'

13 And the sons of Jacob answer Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and they speak (because he defiled Dinah their sister),

14 and say unto them, `We are not able to do this thing, to give our sister to one who hath a foreskin: for it [is] a reproach to us.

15 `Only for this we consent to you; if ye be as we, to have every male of you circumcised,

16 then we have given our daughters to you, and your daughters we take to ourselves, and we have dwelt with you, and have become one people;

17 and if ye hearken not unto us to be circumcised, then we have taken our daughter, and have gone.'

18 And their words are good in the eyes of Hamor, and in the eyes of Shechem, Hamor's son;

19 and the young man delayed not to do the thing, for he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he is honourable above all the house of his father.

20 And Hamor cometh -- Shechem his son also -- unto the gate of their city, and they speak unto the men of their city, saying,

21 `These men are peaceable with us; then let them dwell in the land, and trade [in] it; and the land, lo, [is] wide before them; their daughters let us take to ourselves for wives, and our daughters give to them.

22 `Only for this do the men consent to us, to dwell with us, to become one people, in every male of us being circumcised, as they are circumcised;

23 their cattle, and their substance, and all their beasts -- are they not ours? only let us consent to them, and they dwell with us.'

24 And unto Hamor, and unto Shechem his son, hearken do all those going out of the gate of his city, and every male is circumcised, all those going out of the gate of his city.

25 And it cometh to pass, on the third day, in their being pained, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, take each his sword, and come in against the city confidently, and slay every male;

26 and Hamor, and Shechem his son, they have slain by the mouth of the sword, and they take Dinah out of Shechem's house, and go out.

27 Jacob's sons have come in upon the wounded, and they spoil the city, because they had defiled their sister;

28 their flock and their herd, and their asses, and that which [is] in the city, and that which [is] in the field, have they taken;

29 and all their wealth, and all their infants, and their wives they have taken captive, and they spoil also all that [is] in the house.

30 And Jacob saith unto Simeon and unto Levi, `Ye have troubled me, by causing me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanite, and among the Perizzite: and I [am] few in number, and they have been gathered against me, and have smitten me, and I have been destroyed, I and my house.'

31 And they say, `As a harlot doth he make our sister?'

   

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Spreading themselves

  

'Spreading themselves on the earth,' as in Genesis 8:17, signifies the internal self operating on the external.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 913)

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Arcana Coelestia # 10436

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10436. 'With great power and with a strong hand' means by Divine Power. This is clear from the meaning of 'great power and a strong hand', when it has reference to Jehovah, as Divine Power, dealt with in 7188, 7189, 8050, 8069, 8153. What these words and those before them imply becomes clear from the train of thought in the internal sense, which is that although the Israelite nation's interest lay in external things and not in what was internal, to such an extent that their minds could not be raised at all to more internal levels, what was representative of the Church could nevertheless be established among them and the Word could be written there. These things could be achieved because by the Divine Power contact with heaven by means of those external things in which they were interested without anything internal was nevertheless possible, and so a situation could be effected similar to that which would have existed if they had been interested at the same time in what was internal. On this matter, see what has been shown regarding that nation in the places referred to above in 10396, such as those which show that through the external observances among them, which were representative of inner realities, there was by the Lord's Divine Power contact with heaven, 4311, 4444, 6304, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[2] It should be remembered that the Church is not the Church by virtue of its outward worship but of its inward worship; for outward worship is that of the body whereas inward is that of the soul. Consequently outward worship without the inward is no more than movements of the body, thus worship without life from the Divine. Through the inner components of worship a member of the Church is in contact with the heavens, for whom the outward form serves as the basis on which the inner components may rest like a house on its foundations. And when everything rests like a house on its foundations all is complete and firm, and the whole person is governed by the Divine.

[3] This is what a member of the Ancient Church had been like. This too had been a representative Church and for this reason had been accepted by the Lord, as is clear from a large number of places in the Word. A description of it is contained in the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:3-15. But such a Church could not be established among the Israelite and Jewish nation, for the reason given above, that inwardly they were foul, and so were altogether contrary to the good of heavenly love and the good of faith, which are the inner components of worship. Therefore, when they insisted so stubbornly that they should enter the land of Canaan, which was tantamount to representing the Church, the Lord saw to it that contact with heaven through their merely outward worship should nevertheless be made possible. For the purpose of all worship is contact with heaven, and through this the Lord's being joined to man. These are the matters which the internal sense is dealing with at present.

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