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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 #4373

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4373. 'And he urged him. and he took it' means that that affection originating in the good of truth was instilled by means of affection inspired by Divine Good. This becomes clear from the explanations given so far in 4364 onwards. Further evidence of the actual affection for truth, inspired within the good by Divine Good, is displayed by his urging him, see above in 4366. Before anything more can be said about the affection for truth which is the subject in these verses, it should be recognized that although that affection seems to derive from truth and so to exist within truth it does not derive from truth but from good; for truth has no life at all within it apart from that which comes from good. Its seeming to derive from truth is, to use a comparison, like the life which is present within the body. That life does not in fact belong to the body but to the soul, nor yet to the soul but flows in by way of the soul from the Prime source of life, that is, from the Lord, however much it seems to belong to the body It is also like an image in a mirror, which is seen within the mirror but is in fact a reflection of a shape entering from outside.

[2] To people who confine their minds to the historical details it is not indeed apparent that the internal sense of these words and those before them is anything of the kind; for their thought is of Esau, and of Jacob and the gift he sent ahead of him. They are not aware of the fact that 'Esau' represents Divine Good within the natural and 'Jacob' truth which is to be joined there to Divine Good. Nor are they aware that their friendly dialogue here means an affection inspired within truth by good. Yet the angels understand these historical details in no other way when these are read by man, for angels possess no other mental picture of things than a spiritual one. With them the historical sense is converted into that spiritual picture, and in this way angelic thoughts correspond to those of men. It is never-ending correspondences such as these that cause the Word to be holy and Divine, for as it rises up to heaven the literal sense becomes spiritual. It also rises all the way up to the Lord, where it becomes Divine. This is Inspiration.

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

Kommentar

 

Urge (encourage or exhort)

  

These verbs in the Bible indicate a conflict between two spiritual states, and the effort it takes to attain the higher state. It's easy to see this when facing temptation -- giving in is so easy to do that we have to urge and pressure ourselves to resist; we have to make it really important to ourselves. Such experiences can also come, though, as we advance from a good spiritual state to a better one -- it might mean letting go of some easy, comfortable, simple ideas in order to explore more challenging, nuanced ones, and it takes a level of urgency to accomplish that as well.

(Verweise: Arcana Coelestia 2338, 2406, 7964)