The Bible

 

Genesis 25

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1 And Abraham took another wife named Keturah.

2 She became the mother of Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah.

3 And Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And from Dedan came the Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim.

4 And from Midian came Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the offspring of Keturah.

5 Now Abraham gave all his property to Isaac;

6 But to the sons of his other women he gave offerings, and sent them away, while he was still living, into the east country.

7 Now the years of Abraham's life were a hundred and seventy-five.

8 And Abraham came to his death, an old man, full of years; and he was put to rest with his people.

9 And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, put him to rest in the hollow rock of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, near Mamre;

10 The same field which Abraham got from the children of Heth: there Abraham was put to rest with Sarah, his wife.

11 Now after the death of Abraham, the blessing of God was with Isaac, his son.

12 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whose mother was Hagar the Egyptian, the servant of Sarah:

13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their generations: Ishmael's first son was Nebaioth; then Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam

14 And Mishma and Dumah and Massa,

15 Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:

16 These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names in their towns and their tent-circles; twelve chiefs with their peoples.

17 And the years of Ishmael's life were a hundred and thirty-seven: and he came to his end, and was put to rest with his people.

18 And their country was from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt: they took their place to the east of all their brothers.

19 Now these are the generations of Abraham's son Isaac:

20 Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean of Paddan-aram, and the sister of Laban the Aramaean, to be his wife.

21 Isaac made prayer to the Lord for his wife because she had no children; and the Lord gave ear to his prayer, and Rebekah became with child.

22 And the children were fighting together inside her, and she said, If it is to be so, why am I like this? So she went to put her question to the Lord.

23 And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your body, and Two peoples will come to birth from you: the one will be stronger than the other, and the older will be the servant of the younger.

24 And when the time came for her to give birth, there were two children in her body.

25 And the first came out red from head to foot like a robe of hair, and they gave him the name of Esau.

26 And after him, his brother came out, gripping Esau's foot; and he was named Jacob: Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.

27 And the boys came to full growth; and Esau became a man of the open country, an expert bowman; but Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.

28 Now Isaac's love was for Esau, because Esau's meat was greatly to his taste: but Rebekah had more love for Jacob.

29 And one day Jacob was cooking some soup when Esau came in from the fields in great need of food;

30 And Esau said to Jacob, Give me a full meal of that red soup, for I am overcome with need for food: for this reason he was named Edom.

31 And Jacob said, First of all give me your birthright.

32 And Esau said, Truly, I am at the point of death: what profit is the birthright to me?

33 And Jacob said, First of all give me your oath; and he gave him his oath, handing over his birthright to Jacob.

34 Then Jacob gave him bread and soup; and he took food and drink and went away, caring little for his birthright.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3321

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3321. For I am weary. That this signifies a state of combat, is evident from the signification of “weary,” or of “weariness,” as being a state of combat (see n. 3318). Mention is here again made of being weary, for the sake of confirmation that the conjunction of good with truth in the natural is effected by spiritual combats, that is, by temptations. In regard to the conjunction of good with truth in the natural, the case in general is this: Man’s rational receives truths before his natural; and this to the end that the Lord’s life, which as before said is of love, may flow in through the rational into the natural, and dispose the natural, and reduce it to obedience. For the rational is purer, and the natural grosser; or what is the same, the rational is interior and the natural exterior; and as may be known it is according to order that the interior or purer can flow into the exterior or grosser, but not the reverse.

[2] Hence it is that man’s rational can be accommodated to truths and receive them before his natural, as may be plainly seen from the fact that with one who is to be regenerated the rational man battles much with the natural; or what is the same, the internal man with the external. For as also is known, the internal man can see truths and also will them, but the external refuses assent and resists; for in the natural man there are memory-knowledges which are in a great measure derived from the fallacies of the senses, and which notwithstanding their being false the man believes to be true; there are also things innumerable which the natural man does not apprehend; for he is relatively in shade and thick darkness, and that which he does not apprehend, he believes either not to exist, or not to be so; there are likewise cupidities which are of the love of self and of the world, and all things that favor these he calls truths; and when the man yields to these the dominion, all things that result are contrary to spiritual truths. There are also in the natural man reasonings that are grounded in falsities impressed from infancy. Moreover, man apprehends by manifest sense what is in his natural man, but not so what is in his rational, until he has put off the body. This also causes him to believe the body to be everything; and all that does not fall into the natural sense, he scarcely believes to be anything.

[3] From such causes and many others, it results that the natural man receives truths much later, and with greater difficulty, than does the rational man. Hence arises combat, which continues for a considerable time, not ceasing until the vessels recipient of good in the natural man have been softened by temptations, as before shown (n. 3318); for truths are nothing but vessels recipient of good (n. 1496, 1832, 1900, 2063, 2261, 2269), which vessels are harder in proportion as man is more fixedly confirmed in the things which have been mentioned; and if the man is to be regenerated, the more fixedly he has been confirmed, the more grievous is the combat. As the case with the natural man is such that the conjunction of truths with good therein is effected through the combats of temptations, it is therefore here repeated, “I am weary.”

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