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Genesis 33

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1 And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he distributed the children to Leah, and to Rachel, and to the two maidservants:

2 and he put the maidservants and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindmost.

3 And he passed on before them, and bowed to the earth seven times, until he came near to his brother.

4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

5 And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with thee? And he said, The children that God has graciously given thy servant.

6 And the maidservants drew near, they and their children, and they bowed.

7 And Leah also, with her children, drew near, and they bowed. And lastly Joseph drew near, and Rachel, and they bowed.

8 And he said, What [meanest] thou by all the drove which I met? And he said, To find favour in the eyes of my lord.

9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.

10 And Jacob said, No, I pray thee; if now I have found favour in thine eyes, then receive my gift from my hand; for therefore have I seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou hast received me with pleasure.

11 Take, I pray thee, my blessing which has been brought to thee; because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything. And he urged him, and he took [it].

12 And he said, Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee.

13 And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die.

14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass on before his servant, and I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir.

15 And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee [some] of the people that are with me. And he said, What need? Let me find favour in the eyes of my lord.

16 And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth.

18 And Jacob came safely [to the] city Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-Aram; and he encamped before the city.

19 And he bought the portion of the field where he had spread his tent, of the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred kesitahs.

20 And there he set up an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #4351

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4351. 'And embraced him' means a first joining together effected by love. This is clear from the meaning of 'embracing' as affection, dealt with in 3807; and since all affection is essentially love, and love strives to effect conjunction, it is a joining together effected by love that is therefore meant here. The reason why a first joining together effected by love is meant is that the words 'he fell on his neck' follow and after that 'he kissed him', which mean closer and more interior joinings together brought about by love. It is plain without any further explanation that 'embracing' means the outward expression that flows from a joining together effected by love, and consequently means in the internal sense that joining together. For the ideas which belong to the internal sense present themselves in the Word by means of external events.

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

Kommentar

 

Fall

  
Dempsey and Firpo, by Bellows.

Most of the time, falling means a lowering in spiritual state, from one closer to the Lord to one further. But, as with other common verbs, the meaning of "fall" is highly dependent on context in regular language, and in the spiritual sense as well. People fall on their faces in prayer, fall in battle, fall on others to attack them and fall on each other's necks in greeting. Stars fall from the sky, mountains fall on people, cities fall, and even faces fall. There's a lot of falling, in very different circumstances. When people fall on their faces in prayer -- it shows humility, and an acknowledgement of their own low state and need for the Lord's help. When they fall on each other's necks, it means a communication between the two spiritual states. At the other end of the scale, it illustrates complete spiritual destruction in the fall of a city.