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Genesis 28

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1 Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him, "You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

2 Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father. Take a wife from there from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

3 May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, that you may be a company of peoples,

4 and give you the blessing of Abraham, to you, and to your seed with you, that you may inherit the land where you travel, which God gave to Abraham."

5 Isaac sent Jacob away. He went to Paddan Aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, Rebekah's brother, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan Aram, to take him a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a command, saying, "You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan,"

7 and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan Aram.

8 Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan didn't please Isaac, his father.

9 Esau went to Ishmael, and took, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.

10 Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran.

11 He came to a certain place, and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.

12 He dreamed. Behold, a stairway set upon the earth, and its top reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

13 Behold, Yahweh stood above it, and said, "I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed.

14 Your seed will be as the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.

15 Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you."

16 Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, "Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I didn't know it."

17 He was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than God's house, and this is the gate of heaven."

18 Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on its top.

19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

20 Jacob vowed a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on,

21 so that I come again to my father's house in peace, and Yahweh will be my God,

22 then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, will be God's house. Of all that you will give me I will surely give the tenth to you."

   

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True Christian Religion #24

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24. (v) THE PLURALITY OF GODS IN ANCIENT TIMES, AS WELL AS TODAY, WAS ENTIRELY THE RESULT OF A FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THE DIVINE BEING.

It was shown above (8) that the oneness of God is inwardly impressed upon the mind of every person, since this idea forms the core of all the influences from God which affect the soul of man. But the reason why it has failed to come down into men's understanding is the lack of the pieces of knowledge which a person should have to enable him to climb up to meet God. For everyone needs to prepare the way for God, that is, to prepare himself to receive God, and pieces of knowledge are the means to this end. The following are the missing pieces of knowledge which prevent the understanding from penetrating to the point at which it can see that God is one and there can only be a single Divine Being, who is the source of all natural phenomena.

(1) The fact that no one up to now has known anything about the spiritual world, the home of spirits and angels, and the place where every person comes after death.

(2) Equally, that the spiritual world possesses a sun, which is pure love from Jehovah God, who is in its midst.

(3) That from that sun radiate heat, which is in essence love, and light, which is in essence wisdom.

(4) That as a result everything in that world is spiritual, working on the internal man and making up his will and understanding.

(5) That Jehovah God has given rise by this sun of His not only to the spiritual world and all the innumerable spiritual and substantial things in it, but also to the natural world with all the innumerable natural things in it, which are composed of matter.

(6) That up to now no one has known the difference between the spiritual and the natural, nor what the spiritual is in essence.

(7) Nor that there are three degrees of love and wisdom, which form the basis of the arrangement of the heavens of angels.

(8) That the human mind is divided into the same number of degrees, to enable it after death to be lifted into one of the three heavens, depending upon the way a person has lived and at the same time what he has believed.

(9) And finally that not a jot of all this could have come into being except from the Divine Being which is God in itself, and thus the first principle and beginning from which everything comes. These pieces of knowledge have up to now been missing, yet it is through them that a person must climb up and get to know the Divine Being.

[2] We say that a person climbs up, but it must be understood that it is God who lifts him up. A person has a free choice in acquiring knowledge; and he seems to get this for himself from the Word by means of the understanding, and thus smooths the path for God to come down and lift him up. The pieces of knowledge which enable the human understanding to climb, while God holds it in His hand and guides it, can be compared to the steps of the ladder seen by Jacob, which was set up on earth so that its top reached heaven and angels climbed up by means of it, and Jehovah stood above it (Genesis 28:12-13).

It is quite different when those pieces of knowledge are lacking, or a person treats them with contempt. Then the lifting of the understanding can be compared to a ladder erected from the ground to a first floor window of a magnificent palace, where men live, but not to the second floor windows where the spirits are, much less to the third floor windows where the angels are. The result is that such a person cannot escape from the atmospheres and material objects of the natural world, which occupy his eyes, ears and nose. From these he cannot help acquiring atmospheric and material ideas about heaven and the Being and Essence of God. Thought along these lines does not allow a person to make up his mind at all about God, whether He exists or not, or whether there is one God or several; much less, what His Being and Essence are like. It was this which led to the plurality of gods in ancient times, and still does to-day.

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