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Genesis 28

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1 Then Isaac sent for Jacob, and blessing him, said, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

2 But go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and there get yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

3 And may God, the Ruler of all, give you his blessing, giving you fruit and increase, so that you may become an army of peoples.

4 And may God give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed, so that the land of your wanderings, which God gave to Abraham, may be your heritage.

5 So Isaac sent Jacob away: and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramaean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

6 So when Esau saw that Isaac had given Jacob his blessing, and sent him away to Paddan-aram to get a wife for himself there, blessing him and saying to him, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

7 And that Jacob had done as his father and mother said and had gone to Paddan-aram;

8 It was clear to Esau that his father had no love for the women of Canaan,

9 So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

10 So Jacob went out from Beer-sheba to go to Haran.

11 And coming to a certain place, he made it his resting-place for the night, for the sun had gone down; and he took one of the stones which were there, and putting it under his head he went to sleep in that place.

12 And he had a dream, and in his dream he saw steps stretching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on them.

13 And he saw the Lord by his side, saying, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: I will give to you and to your seed this land on which you are sleeping.

14 Your seed will be like the dust of the earth, covering all the land to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south: you and your seed will be a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.

15 And truly, I will be with you, and will keep you wherever you go, guiding you back again to this land; and I will not give you up till I have done what I have said to you.

16 And Jacob, awaking from his sleep, said, Truly, the Lord is in this place and I was not conscious of it.

17 And fear came on him, and he said, This is a holy place; this is nothing less than the house of God and the doorway of heaven.

18 And early in the morning Jacob took the stone which had been under his head, and put it up as a pillar and put oil on it.

19 And he gave that place the name of Beth-el, but before that time the town was named Luz.

20 Then Jacob took an oath, and said, If God will be with me, and keep me safe on my journey, and give me food and clothing to put on,

21 So that I come again to my father's house in peace, then I will take the Lord to be my God,

22 And this stone which I have put up for a pillar will be God's house: and of all you give me, I will give a tenth part to you.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #3951

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3951. 'For I have surely hired you with my son's dudaim' means that this had accordingly been seen to and agreed beforehand. This is clear from the meaning of 'surely hiring' as an agreement, as well as its being evident from what is said prior to this. The reason why it had been seen to beforehand is that the joining of truth to good or of good to truth in a person is something seen to beforehand, that is, seen to by the Lord in His providence. For at present the subject is the joining of good to truth and of truth to good, and so the subject is the good which is made a person's own. Indeed good is not good with anyone until it has been joined to truth. And since all good comes from the Lord, that is, all good is made a person's own through the joining of that good to truth, the expression 'seen to beforehand' is used here. The Lord's providence is concerned first and foremost with that joining together of the two. It is good and truth thus joined together that makes a person human and marks him off from animals, making him a human being insofar as he accepts that providence, that is, insofar as he allows the Lord to achieve the objective. This therefore is the good that exists with a person. No other kind of good exists which is spiritual and lasts for ever.

[2] Furthermore, forms of good with the external man, which are the delights of life while a person lives in the world, are truly good only in the measure that they hold that spiritual good within them. Take for example the good served by riches. In the measure that riches hold spiritual good within them, that is, in the measure that a person regards the good of his neighbour, the good of his country or the public good, and the good of the Church, as the end in view to be served by riches, they are truly good. But people who come to the conclusion that the spiritual good spoken of here and material opulence do not go together, one within the other, and who therefore become convinced that to make room for heaven they must renounce riches, are much mistaken. For if they renounce them or divest themselves of them they are not then in a position to do good to anyone and they themselves cannot live in the world in anything but misery. Thus they are not able any longer to have the good of their neighbour and the good of their country, or even the good of the Church, as their end in view, only their own salvation and their becoming greater than others in heaven. What is more, when they renounce worldly possessions they also throw themselves open to contempt, which makes them of little value in the sight of others and therefore useless for rendering service and the performing of duties. But when they do have the good of their neighbour, country, and Church as their end in view, they also have as their end in view, or the means to it, the conditions in which they will be able to attain that end.

[3] It is exactly the same with a person's food, for the end in view with food is that he may have a healthy mind in a healthy body. If someone deprives the body of its food he also deprives himself of the conditions necessary for the attainment of that end. Consequently no one who is a spiritual man despises food or its pleasures. He does not however regard it as an end in itself but the means to an end. From this as an example one can work out the situation with all other forms of such good.

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