Die Bibel

 

Genesis 33

Lernen

   

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.

   

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #4379

studieren Sie diesen Abschnitt

  
/ 10837  
  

4379. 'And if the men overdrive them for one day, all the flocks will die' means a passage of time and a subsequent stage; also that otherwise they would not live, and so needed to be prepared to be joined together. This becomes clear from the actual train of thought. For in what has gone before the subject has been the joining of good to truths in general, whereas now the same joining together of them in particular is dealt with. The actual process in which truth is instilled into good is described at this point in the internal sense. One may catch a glimpse of what that process is like from the explanation in general; but one can see nothing of the countless arcana to do with it. Such arcana are clearly visible only to those who dwell in the light of heaven, while a rough outline of them is seen by those dwelling in the light of the world when the light of heaven is allowed to brighten that light.

[2] Clear enough evidence of this exists in the fact that when a person is being born again he passes through phases analogous to those passed through after birth, and from the fact that a previous state is always like the egg in relation to the state that follows it, thus that there is a repeated occurrence of conception and birth. This is so not only when he lives in the world, but also when he enters the next life for ever. And even then he cannot be perfected beyond the point of being at the egg-stage so far as the limitless things to come are concerned. From this one may see how countless the things are which are involved in a person's regeneration, but of which people know scarcely anything, and one may see how many are the things contained in the internal sense at this point, where a subsequent state and the manner by which good is instilled into truths is the subject.

  
/ 10837  
  

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

Kommentar

 

Before

  
Photo by Jenny Stein

In most cases, the meaning of "before" is pretty straightforward, both as a way of assessing relative time, and in its use meaning "in someone's presence." It takes on a deeper significance, though, when used in connection with the Lord. To be "before" the Lord means not just in His presence, but also receiving the desire for good and the understanding of truth from Him, and living according to them. And when used as an assessment of time in connection with the Lord, "before" means "from eternity," and refers to a spiritual state rather than time as we experience it.

(Verweise: Apocalypse Revealed 366, 617; Arcana Coelestia 6983, 8439, 9888)