4336. Genesis 33

1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. And he divided the sons over towards Leah, and over towards Rachel, and over towards the two servant-girls.

2. And he put the servant-girls and their sons first, and Leah and her sons further back, and Rachel and Joseph even further back.

3. And he himself passed over in front of them, and bowed to the ground seven times, until he came right up 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 their sons, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The sons whom God has graciously bestowed on your servant.

6. And the servant-girls came near, they and their sons, and bowed down.

7. And Leah also came near, then her sons, and they bowed down; and after that Joseph came near, then Rachel, and they bowed down.

8. And he said, What do you mean by all this camp which I met? And he said, To find favour in the eyes of my lord.

9. And Esau said, I have much, my brother; let what is yours be yours.

10. And Jacob said, No, I beg of you; if now I have found favour in your eyes, then take my gift from my hand; inasmuch as I have seen your face, as though seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.

11. Take now my blessing which is brought to you, because God has graciously bestowed much on me, and because I have everything. And he urged him, and he took it.

12. And he said, Let us travel on and go, and I will go beside you.

13. And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with me are suckling, and if the men overdrive them for one day, all the flocks will die.

14. Let my lord now pass over before his servant, and I will move on slowly at the walking-pace of the cattle ¹ that are before me, and at the walking-pace ² of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir.

15. And Esau said, Let me now place with you some of the people who are with me. And he said, Why so? Let me find favour in my lord's eyes.

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

17. And Jacob travelled on to Succoth, and built a house for himself, and made booths for his cattle; therefore he called the name of the place Succoth.

18. And Jacob came to Salem, the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, as he was coming from Paddan Aram; and he encamped towards the face of the city.

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

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

CONTENTS

The subject now in the internal sense is the joining together of Divine Natural Good, meant by 'Esau', and the Good of Truth, meant by 'Jacob'. So the subject is the submission of this latter Good and the introduction of it into Divine Natural Good. The process by which this is effected is described. In the last part of the chapter the subject is the acquisition of interior truths.

Fußnoten:

Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".