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Genesis 35

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1 And God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto the ùGod that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.

2 And Jacob said to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments;

3 and we will arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar to the ùGod that answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way that I went.

4 And they gave to Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hand, and the rings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that [is] by Shechem.

5 And they journeyed; and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

6 And Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Bethel, he and all the people that were with him.

7 And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el; because there God had appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.

8 And Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died; and she was buried beneath Bethel, under the oak; and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth.

9 And God appeared to Jacob again after he had come from Padan-Aram, and blessed him.

10 And God said to him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called his name Israel.

11 And God said to him, I am the Almighty ùGod: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee; and kings shall come out of thy loins.

12 And the land that I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.

13 And God went up from him in the place where he had talked with him.

14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had talked with him, a pillar of stone, and poured on it a drink-offering, and poured oil on it.

15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God had talked with him, Beth-el.

16 And they journeyed from Bethel. And there was yet a certain distance to come to Ephrath, when Rachel travailed in childbirth; and it went hard with her in her childbearing.

17 And it came to pass when it went hard with her in her childbearing, that the midwife said to her, Fear not; for this also is a son for thee.

18 And it came to pass as her soul was departing -- for she died -- that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin.

19 And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which [is] Bethlehem.

20 And Jacob erected a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave to [this] day.

21 And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent on the other side of Migdal-Eder.

22 And it came to pass when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine; and Israel heard of it. And the sons of Jacob were twelve.

23 The sons of Leah: Reuben -- Jacob's firstborn -- and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun.

24 The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

25 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant: Dan and Naphtali.

26 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's maidservant: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob that were born to him in Padan-Aram.

27 And Jacob came to Isaac his father to Mamre -- to Kirjath-Arba, which is Hebron; where Abraham had sojourned, and Isaac.

28 And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years.

29 And Isaac expired and died, and was gathered to his peoples, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #4598

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4598. 'Israel travelled on' means the celestial-spiritual of the natural then. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling on' as a further stage or a continuation, dealt with in 4375, 4554, in this case towards aspects more interior still, and from the representation of 'Israel' here as the celestial-spiritual of the natural, dealt with in 4286. What the celestial-spiritual of the natural is has been explained already, namely the good of truth, or the good of charity arrived at through the truth of faith. Little knowledge exists in the world of what an advance towards more interior aspects is. It is not an advance into knowledge of facts, for that kind of advance is often made without any advancement towards interior things, and more often still is accompanied by a movement away from these. Neither is it an advance in maturity of judgement, for this too is sometimes accompanied by a movement away from interior things. Nor yet is it an advance made into cognitions of interior truth, for these count for nothing if a person does not have any affection for them. An advance towards interior things is an advance nearer to heaven and the Lord made by means of the cognitions of truth which have been implanted in an affection for them, and so is an advance made by means of the affections.

[2] What an advance towards interior things is like is not apparent to anyone in the world; but in the next life it is plain to see. In that life it is an advance out of a kind of haze into light; for compared with others people who are concerned solely with more external things live in a haze, and are also seen by the angels to do so, whereas those who have a concern for more internal things dwell in light, and consequently in wisdom since the light there is wisdom. And what is amazing, those living in the haze cannot see that those in light are in light, whereas those dwelling in light can see that those in the haze are in a haze. Since the subject is the advance made by the Lord's Divine towards more interior aspects, Jacob is called Israel here; but where that advance is not the subject he is called Jacob, as in verse 20 immediately before this, and in the final verse of this chapter.

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