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Genesis 34

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1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.

2 And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and humbled her.

3 And his soul fastened on Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the maiden, and spoke consolingly to the maiden.

4 And Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, Take me this girl as wife.

5 And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; but his sons were with his cattle in the fields, and Jacob said nothing until they came.

6 And Hamor the father of Shechem came out to Jacob, to speak to him.

7 And the sons of Jacob came from the fields when they heard [it]; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had wrought what was disgraceful in Israel, in lying with Jacob's daughter, which thing ought not to be done.

8 And Hamor spoke to them, saying, My son Shechem's soul cleaves to your daughter: I pray you, give her to him as wife.

9 And make marriages with us: give your daughters to us, and take our daughters to you.

10 And dwell with us, and the land shall be before you: dwell and trade in it, and get yourselves possessions in it.

11 And Shechem said to her father and to her brethren, Let me find favour in your eyes; and what ye shall say to me I will give.

12 Impose on me very much as dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say to me; but give me the maiden as wife.

13 And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and spoke -- because he had defiled Dinah their sister --

14 and said to them, We cannot do this, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that [were] a reproach to us.

15 But only in this will we consent to you, if ye will be as we, that every male of you be circumcised;

16 then will we give our daughters to you, and take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and be one people.

17 But if ye do not hearken to us, to be circumcised, then will we take our daughter and go away.

18 And their words were good in the eyes of Hamor and Shechem, Hamor's son.

19 And the youth did not delay to do this, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter. And he was honourable above all in the house of his father.

20 And Hamor and Shechem his son came to the gate of their city, and spoke to the men of their city, saying,

21 These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade in it. And the land -- behold, it is of wide extent before them. We will take their daughters as wives, and give them our daughters.

22 But only in this will the men consent to us to dwell with us, to be one people -- if every male among us be circumcised, just as they are circumcised.

23 Their cattle, and their possessions, and every beast of theirs, shall they not be ours? only let us consent to them, and they will dwell with us.

24 And all that went out at the gate of his city hearkened to Hamor and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised -- all that went out at the gate of his city.

25 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.

26 And Hamor and Shechem his son they slew with the edge of the sword; and took Dinah out of Shechem's house; and went out.

27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.

28 Their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and what [was] in the city, and what [was] in the field they took;

29 and all their goods, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and plundered them, and all that was in the houses.

30 And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me, in that ye make me odious among the inhabitants of the land -- among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and I am few men in number, and they will gather themselves against me and smite me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.

31 And they said, Should people deal with our sister as with a harlot?

   

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Arcana Coelestia #4341

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4341. 'And four hundred men with him' means a state, in this case the state when Divine Good and Truth within the Natural are joined together, since that joining together is the subject. In the Word 'four hundred' means a state of temptation and the duration of it, 1847, 2959, 2966. And since every joining together of good and truth is effected by means of temptations it is the state of temptations that is meant here. For temptations are the means by which goods are joined to truths, see 2272, 3318, and temptations come when good starts to play the leading role, 4248, 4249; also the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence was effected by means of temptations, 1737.

[2] It is not the good itself which is to be joined to truth that is tempted, but the truth. Nor is truth tempted by good but by falsities and evils, and also by misconceptions and illusions, and by the affection for these, which cling to the truths within the natural. For when good flows in, which it does by an internal route, that is, through the internal rational man, the ideas possessed by the natural man which have been formed from the misconceptions of the senses and from illusions resulting from these cannot bear the approach of it, for they do not accord with it; and this gives rise to distress within the natural and to temptation. These are the factors which in the internal sense of this chapter are described by the fear and therefore the distress that Jacob felt, and his consequent state of submission and humiliation when Esau was coming with four hundred men. For the joining together of good and truth is never effected by any other means. From this it may be seen that 'four. hundred men' means a state of temptations - 'four hundred' the actual state itself, 'men' rational truths which have been joined to good when this flows into the natural. For 'men' means things of the understanding and of the rational, see 265, 749, 1007, 3134.

[3] But these considerations are such that they pass into the unlit parts of the human mind, the reason being that while a person is living in the body the difference between the rational and the natural cannot be seen. It is not seen at all by those who are not regenerate, and barely so by those who are, since they neither reflect on nor are even interested in the matter. For knowledge of the interior aspects of the human being has been virtually wiped out, yet in former times that knowledge constituted the whole of intelligence among people within the Church. Those considerations are however able to be substantiated to some extent from what has been shown already about the rational and its influx into the natural, that is to say, from the explanation that the natural is regenerated by means of the rational, 3286, 3288, and that the rational receives truths before the natural does so, 3321, 3368, 3671. It is these truths which flow, accompanied by good, from the rational into the natural that are meant in the internal sense by the four hundred men who accompanied Esau.

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

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Arcana Coelestia #2966

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2966. 'Four hundred shekels of silver' means the price of redemption, as has been shown above in 2959. But what the price of redemption is will now be stated. Redemption is attributable to the Lord alone, and so also is the price of redemption. Yet the latter may also be spoken of in reference to man's receptivity, though with him the price of redemption is determined by the measure of his receptivity. The price of redemption is the Lord's merit and righteousness acquired through the severest temptations by which He united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, and the Divine Essence to the Human Essence, doing so by His own power. And through that uniting of them He has saved the human race, especially those who belong to the spiritual Church.

For the Lord's becoming righteousness through the severest temptations, see 1813, 2025-2027.

For the Lord's uniting of the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, and the Divine Essence to the Human Essence, 1725, 1729, 1733, 1737, 1813, 2083.

For His doing this by His own power, 1616, 1921, 2025, 2026, 2083, 2500, 2523, 2632.

And for His salvation of the human race, especially those who belong to the spiritual Church, through that uniting of both, 2661, 2716.

These are the factors meant by the price of redemption.

[2] As regards the consideration that this price may also be spoken of in reference to man's receptivity, though with him that price is determined by the measure of his receptivity, this may be seen from the truth that it is the Lord's Divine which constitutes the Church with man. For the Church does not hearken to anything except that which is the Lord's own. It is the good of love and charity, and the truth of faith, that constitute that which is called the Church. For it is well known that all good comes from the Lord and that all truth comes from the Lord. Good and truth that come from man are not good and truth. From this it is evident that the price of redemption is with man determined by the measure of his receptivity.

[3] Because among the Jews the Lord's redemption was rated so low as to be scarcely anything at all, it is therefore said in Zechariah,

I said to them, If it is good in your eyes, give me my wages; and if not, withhold them. And they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver. And Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the magnificent price I was valued at among them. Zechariah 11:12-13.

And in Matthew,

They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him whom they had bought from the children of Israel, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me. Matthew 27:9-10.

'Thirty' is that which is so little as to be scarcely anything, see 2276. Thus the meaning is that the Jews rated the Lord's merit and redemption as nothing, but among those who believed that all good and all truth came from the Lord, the price of redemption is meant by 'forty' and to a higher degree by 'four hundred'.

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