La Biblia

 

Genesis 32

Estudio

   

1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

2 And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, to the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak to my lord Esau: Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there till now:

5 And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.

6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he is coming to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.

7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and distressed: and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and herds, and camels, into two bands;

8 And said, If Esau shall come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left, will escape.

9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who saidst to me, Return to thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee;

10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shown to thy servant: for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.

11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he shall come and smite me, and the mother with the children.

12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

13 And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau, his brother;

14 Two hundred she-goats, and twenty he-goats, Two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

15 Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals.

16 And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said to his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove.

17 And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau, my brother, meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee?

18 Then thou shalt say, They are thy servant Jacob's: it is a present sent to my lord Esau: and behold also he is behind us.

19 And so he commanded the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, In this manner shall ye speak to Esau, when ye find him.

20 And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me.

21 So the present went over before him; and he himself lodged that night in the company.

22 And he arose that night, and took his two wives, and his two women-servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.

23 And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that which he had.

24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him, until the breaking of the day.

25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh: and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh; And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

27 And he said to him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.

28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God, and with men, and hast prevailed.

29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name: And he said, why is it that thou dost ask after my name? and he blessed him there.

30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

31 And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

32 Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrunk, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, to this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrunk.

   

De obras de Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #4290

Estudiar este pasaje

  
/ 10837  
  

4290. In the internal historical sense 'he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me' means that they insisted on being representative, for being insistent is meant by 'I will not let you' and the representative of the Church by 'being blessed'. This particular matter - the insistence of Jacob's descendants that they should be representative of the Church, though they were no more the elect than any other nation - is not very clear, it is true, from the historical narratives of the Word contained in the sense of the letter. It is not clear because those narratives hold the arcana of heaven within them, which accordingly follow one another in a connected sequence, and also because the actual names there are used to mean spiritual realities, many of which names indeed are used in the highest sense to mean the Lord. Examples of these are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who mean in the highest sense the Lord, as has been shown many times in what has gone before; see also 1965, 1989, 2011, 3245, 3305 (end), 3439.

[2] The fact that Jacob's descendants were not the elect, yet they insisted that the Church should have its existence among themselves, may be seen from the internal historical sense in many places in the Word, openly so in the following statements in Moses,

Jehovah said to Moses, Go up from here, you and the people which you made to go up out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it. I will not go up in your midst, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way. When the people heard this bad news, 1 they mourned and took off every one his ornament from upon him. And Moses took a tent and pitched it for himself outside the camp, far away from the camp. Moses said to Jehovah, See, You say to me, Make this people go up, when You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Now therefore, if, I pray, I have found favour in Your eyes, make known to me, I pray, Your ways, so that I may know of You, that I have found favour in Your eyes. See also that this nation is Your people. He said therefore, My presence will go [with you], until I give you rest. Exodus 33:1, 3-4, 7, 12-14.

In this chapter of Exodus it is said that Moses made the people go up out of Egypt and then that they took off their ornaments and mourned, and that Moses pitched the tent outside the camp and that Jehovah gave His assent. This shows plainly that they themselves were insistent.

[3] In the same author,

Jehovah said to Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will they not believe, for all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will strike them down with pestilence and annihilate them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are. But Moses entreated Jehovah, who being appeased said, I will be gracious according to your word. But yet, I am the living One, and all the earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah; for as for all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the desert, and despite this have tempted Me these ten times and have not obeyed My voice, they will not see the land which I swore to their fathers; all who provoke Me will not see it. In this desert will your bodies fall, but I will bring in your children. Numbers 14[11-13, 20-23, 29, 31].

From these verses also it is evident that Jehovah was willing to annihilate them and therefore not to establish the Church among them, but that they insisted it should be established among them, and therefore it was done. And there were many other occasions besides this when Jehovah would have wiped out that repeatedly rebellious nation but repeatedly He allowed Himself to be appeased by their entreaties.

[4] The same is also implied by the fact that Balaam was not allowed to curse that people, in 22 Chapters, 24 of Numbers; in addition to other places where it is said that Jehovah repented of having brought that people in; also that Jehovah was appeased, as well as that He repeatedly made a new covenant with them. These are the kinds of things that are meant in the internal historical sense by the words 'I will not let you go unless you bless me'. Something similar is also meant by Jacob's taking the birthright from Esau as well as taking the blessing by deceit from him, in Chapters 25, 27 of Genesis.

Notas a pie de página:

1. literally, evil word

  
/ 10837  
  

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