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Genesis 26

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1 And there is a famine in the land, besides the first famine which was in the days of Abraham, and Isaac goeth unto Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

2 And Jehovah appeareth unto him, and saith, `Go not down towards Egypt, tabernacle in the land concerning which I speak unto thee,

3 sojourn in this land, and I am with thee, and bless thee, for to thee and to thy seed I give all these lands, and I have established the oath which I have sworn to Abraham thy father;

4 and I have multiplied thy seed as stars of the heavens, and I have given to thy seed all these lands; and blessed themselves in thy seed have all nations of the earth;

5 because that Abraham hath hearkened to My voice, and keepeth My charge, My commands, My statutes, and My laws.'

6 And Isaac dwelleth in Gerar;

7 and men of the place ask him of his wife, and he saith, `She [is] my sister:' for he hath been afraid to say, `My wife -- lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, for she [is] of good appearance.'

8 And it cometh to pass, when the days have been prolonged to him there, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looketh through the window, and seeth, and lo, Isaac is playing with Rebekah his wife.

9 And Abimelech calleth for Isaac, and saith, `Lo, she [is] surely thy wife; and how hast thou said, She [is] my sister?' and Isaac saith unto him, `Because I said, Lest I die for her.'

10 And Abimelech saith, `What [is] this thou hast done to us? as a little thing one of the people had lain with thy wife, and thou hadst brought upon us guilt;'

11 and Abimelech commandeth all the people, saying, `He who cometh against this man or against his wife, dying doth die.'

12 And Isaac soweth in that land, and findeth in that year a hundredfold, and Jehovah blesseth him;

13 and the man is great, and goeth on, going on and becoming great, till that he hath been very great,

14 and he hath possession of a flock, and possession of a herd, and an abundant service; and the Philistines envy him,

15 and all the wells which his father's servants digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines have stopped them, and fill them with dust.

16 And Abimelech saith unto Isaac, `Go from us; for thou hast become much mightier than we;'

17 and Isaac goeth from thence, and encampeth in the valley of Gerar, and dwelleth there;

18 and Isaac turneth back, and diggeth the wells of water which they digged in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines do stop after the death of Abraham, and he calleth to them names according to the names which his father called them.

19 And Isaac's servants dig in the valley, and find there a well of living water,

20 and shepherds of Gerar strive with shepherds of Isaac, saying, `The water [is] ours;' and he calleth the name of the well `Strife,' because they have striven habitually with him;

21 and they dig another well, and they strive also for it, and he calleth its name `Hatred.'

22 And he removeth from thence, and diggeth another well, and they have not striven for it, and he calleth its name Enlargements, and saith, `For -- now hath Jehovah given enlargement to us, and we have been fruitful in the land.'

23 And he goeth up from thence [to] Beer-Sheba,

24 and Jehovah appeareth unto him during that night, and saith, `I [am] the God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I [am] with thee, and have blessed thee, and have multiplied thy seed, because of Abraham My servant;'

25 and he buildeth there an altar, and preacheth in the name of Jehovah, and stretcheth out there his tent, and there Isaac's servants dig a well.

26 And Abimelech hath gone unto him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phichol head of his host;

27 and Isaac saith unto them, `Wherefore have ye come unto me, and ye have hated me, and ye send me away from you?'

28 And they say, `We have certainly seen that Jehovah hath been with thee, and we say, `Let there be, we pray thee, an oath between us, between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee;

29 do not evil with us, as we have not touched thee, and as we have only done good with thee, and send thee away in peace; thou [art] now blessed of Jehovah.'

30 And he maketh for them a banquet, and they eat and drink,

31 and rise early in the morning, and swear one to another, and Isaac sendeth them away, and they go from him in peace.

32 And it cometh to pass during that day that Isaac's servants come and declare to him concerning the circumstances of the well which they have digged, and say to him, `We have found water;'

33 and he calleth it Shebah, [oath,] therefore the name of the city [is] Beer-Sheba, [well of the oath,] unto this day.

34 And Esau is a son of forty years, and he taketh a wife, Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite,

35 and they are a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #3539

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3539. And put them upon Jacob her younger son. That this signifies the affection of truth, or the life of good from truth, is evident from the representation of Rebekah, as being the Divine truth of the Divine rational; from the representation of Jacob, as being the Divine truth of the Divine natural; and from the signification of “putting upon,” as being here to communicate and to imbue, namely, the truths of good which are signified by the “garments of Esau” (n. 3537), thus the affection of truth of the natural, which is here the same as the life of good from truth. How these things are to be understood may be known from what was said above (n. 3518); but because they are such things as are at this day utterly unknown, it is permitted to unfold them somewhat further to the apprehension. In this chapter the Lord is treated of, and how He made His very natural Divine; and in the representative sense there is treated of the regeneration of man as to his natural (see n. 3490).

[2] The case herein with man is this: The end of regeneration is that man may be made new as to his internal man, thus as to his soul or spirit; but man cannot be made new or regenerated as to his internal man unless he is regenerated as to his external man also; for although after death man becomes a spirit, he nevertheless has with him in the other life the things which are of his external man, namely, natural affections, and also doctrinal things, and even memory-knowledges; in a word, all things of the exterior or natural memory (see n. 2475-2483); for these are the planes in which his interiors are terminated; and therefore according to the disposition that has been made of these things is the character of interior things when they flow into them, because they are modified in them. This shows that man must be regenerated or made new not only as to his internal or rational man, but also as to his external or natural man; and unless this were the case there would not be any correspondence. (That there is a correspondence between the internal man and its spiritual things, and the external man and its natural things, may be seen above, n. 2971, 2987, 2989-2990, 3002, 3493)

[3] The state of the regeneration of man is described in a representative sense in this chapter by “Esau” and “Jacob;” here, the quality of man’s first state while he is being regenerated, or before he has been regenerated; for this state is entirely inverted in respect to that in which man is when he has been regenerated. For in the former state, during regeneration, or before he has been regenerated, intellectual things which are of truth apparently act the first part; but when he has been regenerated, the things of the will, which are of good, act the first part. That intellectual things which are of truth apparently act the first part in the first state, was represented by Jacob, in that he claimed the birthright of Esau for himself (see n. 3325, 3336); and also in that he claimed the blessing, which is here treated of; and that the state has been completely inverted, is represented by Jacob’s feigning to be Esau, in clothing himself with the garments of Esau and the skins of the kids of the she-goats; for in this state rational truth not yet thus conjoined with rational good, or what is the same, the understanding not thus conjoined with the will, in this manner inflows and acts into the natural, and disposes inversely the things which are there.

[4] This can also be seen from much experience, especially from the fact that a man is able to observe in the understanding, and thereby his natural can know, many things which are good and true, and yet the will cannot as yet act in accordance with them; as for instance that love and charity are the essential in man: this the intellectual faculty of man can see and confirm, but until he has been regenerated the will faculty cannot acknowledge it: there are even those who are in no love to the Lord whatever, and in no charity toward the neighbor, who well apprehend this. In like manner that love is the very life of man, and that such as the love is, such is the life; and likewise that everything delightful and everything pleasant is from love, consequently all joy and all happiness; and therefore also such as the love is, such is the joy and such the happiness. A man is also able to apprehend in his understanding, even should his will dissent or go contrary thereto, that the happiest life is from love to the Lord and from charity toward the neighbor, because the very Divine flows into it; and on the other hand that the most miserable life is from the love of self and the love of the world, because hell flows into it; and from this it may be perceptible to the understanding, yet not to the will, that love to the Lord is the life of heaven, and that mutual love is the soul from this life; and therefore insofar as a man does not think from the life of his will, nor reflect upon his life derived therefrom, so far he perceives this in his understanding; but insofar as he thinks from the life of his will, so far he does not perceive, nay denies it.

[5] Also to the understanding it may clearly appear that it is into the humiliation with a man that the Divine can inflow; for the reason that in this state the loves of self and of the world, and consequently the infernal things which oppose, are removed; but yet so long as the will is not new and the understanding has not been united to it, the man cannot be in humiliation of heart; nay, insofar as the man is in a life of evil, that is, insofar as his will is toward evil, so far this state is not possible; and what is more, so far the matter is obscure to him, and so far he even denies it. Hence also a man can perceive in his understanding that the humiliation of man is not for the sake of the Lord’s love of glory, but for the sake of His Divine love, and in order that He can thereby inflow with good and truth and make the man blessed and happy; nevertheless so far as the will is consulted, so far this is obscured. The same is true in very many other cases.

[6] This faculty of man of being able to understand what is good and true although he does not will it, has been given to man in order that he may have the capacity of being reformed and regenerated; on which account this faculty exists with the evil as well as with the good; nay, with the evil it is sometimes more acute, but with this difference, that with the evil there is no affection of truth for the sake of life, that is, for the sake of the good of life from truth, and therefore they cannot be reformed; but with the good there is the affection of truth for the sake of life, that is, for the sake of the good of life, and therefore they can be reformed. But the first state of the reformation of these is that the truth of doctrine appears to them to be in the first place, and the good of life in the second, because they do what is good from truth; and their second state is that the good of life is in the first place, and the truth of doctrine in the second, for then they do what is good from good, that is, from the will of good; and when this is the case, because the will has been conjoined with the understanding as in a marriage, the man has been regenerated. In the internal sense these two states are treated of in the things said concerning Esau and Jacob.

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