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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 #4352

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4352. 'And fell on his neck' means a second joining together involving everything included within that universal embodiment of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'falling on the neck' as a closer joining together since it is a closer kind of embrace. Furthermore 'the neck' in the internal sense means the influx and communication of interior things with exterior, and therefore means a joining together of them, see 3542, 3603. The reason why this is a joining together of everything - or with everything - within that universal embodiment of truth is that Jacob, to whom 'his' refers here, means the universal embodiment of every kind of truth, 4346.

[2] The joining together of good and truths within the natural is described here, and the nature of that joining together is as follows: Good flows by way of the internal man into the external man, where it joins itself to the truths which have been introduced by way of the external man. For the good which flows in by way of the internal man is the good of love; indeed no good exists, spiritual or celestial, which is not the good of love. Love is the source of such good and the reason why it is called good with man. It is the actual love present within good and going with good that effects any joining together. Unless love were present within and at hand no joining together would ever be possible, for love is nothing other than a spiritual joining together since it is love that brings it about. This love comes from nowhere else than the Lord, for He is the fountain and source of all celestial and spiritual love, and therefore of all good which flows from that love. That love is twofold, celestial and spiritual. Celestial love is love to the Lord, while spiritual love is love to the neighbour and is called charity. These are the kinds of love from which all celestial or spiritual good is derived and which join themselves to truths which are called the truths of faith. For the truths of faith regarded without love are mere sounds devoid of any life; but through love, and so through being joined to the good of love, they receive life. From this it becomes clear that no measure of faith at all exists except with those who have the good of love in them, and that faith exists insofar as love is present.

[3] And since no measure of faith at all exists except with those who have the good of love within them, neither therefore does any confidence or trust exist with them. With people other than those who have love and charity, trust or confidence which is called the trust or confidence of faith is either spurious or else the kind that can exist even with devil-spirits when subject to fear or to anguish, or else to false persuasion resulting from self-love and love of the world. However, even though at the present day faith without the good works of charity has been made the bringer of salvation, people in a remote way still see that the truths of faith have no power to save because those truths are known also by the evil. Therefore they recognize confidence or trust, to which they give the name faith. They call it faith without being aware of what it really is, or that such is possible even with the evil, or that no spiritual confidence exists if it does not flow in by way of the good of love and charity. They are unaware of the fact that such spiritual confidence does not flow in when a person is subject to fear or anguish, or to false persuasion resulting from self-love and love of the world, but when he is in a state of freedom. Nor are they aware that spiritual confidence does not exist in people other than those with whom good has been joined to truths and become deeply rooted during the course of their lives prior to this, and so does not exist in cases of illness, misfortune, danger to life, or when death is at hand. If this confidence or trust which shows itself in a case of compulsion could save a person, then every mortal human being would be saved, for every one is brought with ease to that confidence; indeed there are none to whom the Lord - who desires the salvation of all - would not grant it. But regarding the confidence or trust which is called faith - what it is, the nature of it, and whom it exists with - this must in the Lord's Divine mercy be discussed elsewhere.

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