Bibliorum

 

Genesis 32:22-31 : Jacob Wrestles With God

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22 He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok.

23 He took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had.

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

25 When he saw that he didn't prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled.

26 The man said, "Let me go, for the day breaks." Jacob said, "I won't let you go, unless you bless me."

27 He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob."

28 He said, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed."

29 Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." He said, "Why is it that you ask what my name is?" He blessed him there.

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

31 The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh.

Commentarius

 

Fake It Until You Make It

By Todd Beiswenger

Jacob wrestles with an angel, from a fresco by Eugène Delacroix in Église Saint-Sulpice (Paris), 1861.


Ut pergas pasco dum audis, audi in fenestra nova.

When we decide that we want a new life, we have to LIVE it. Sometimes this means we're faking our responses and actions, but as long as we're faking it with the intention to make it, God will turn that fake feeling into a real one.

(Notae: Arcana Coelestia 4281, 6592, 8389, 8588; Conjugial Love 281; Genesis 32:22-31, 50:24-25)

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Conjugial Love #281

Studere hoc loco

  
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281. 10. In natural people, these simulations of conjugial love are a matter of prudence, for various reasons. It is impossible for an interior love to exist between two married partners, one of whom is spiritual, the other natural. By spiritual we mean one who loves spiritual things and who thus has his wisdom from the Lord; and by natural we mean one who loves only natural things and who thus has his wisdom from himself. When two people like this are joined in marriage, conjugial love in the spiritual partner is warm and in the natural partner cold. It is plain that warmth and coldness cannot coexist, thus that warmth cannot ignite the one in a state of coldness unless the coldness is first dispelled, or coldness flow into the one in a state of warmth unless the warmth is first removed. That is why it is impossible for an interior love to exist between married partners when one of them is spiritual and the other natural, but that a love resembling an interior one may exist on the part of the spiritual partner, as we said under an earlier heading. 1

[2] On the other hand, no interior love is possible between natural partners, because they are both cold. If they experience feelings of warmth, it is owing to an unchaste love. Nevertheless, partners like this can still live together in the same house despite their being divided in spirit, and they can also feign seeming expressions of love and friendship in their relations with each other, no matter how mutually discordant their minds. In their case outward affections may be set on fire, so to speak, which are concerned for the most part with wealth and possessions or with honor and positions of rank; and because this fire induces a fear of losing such things, simulations of conjugial love are to them necessary, being adopted chiefly for the reasons cited under headings 15. to 17. below. They may also be adopted for the other reasons enumerated with these, in which case they may have something in common with the reasons of a spiritual person, mentioned in no. 280 above; but only if the prudence in the natural person includes a measure of intelligence.

V:

1. See no. 277.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.