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Genesis 28

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1 Then Isaac sent for Jacob, and blessing him, said, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

2 But go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and there get yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

3 And may God, the Ruler of all, give you his blessing, giving you fruit and increase, so that you may become an army of peoples.

4 And may God give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed, so that the land of your wanderings, which God gave to Abraham, may be your heritage.

5 So Isaac sent Jacob away: and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramaean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

6 So when Esau saw that Isaac had given Jacob his blessing, and sent him away to Paddan-aram to get a wife for himself there, blessing him and saying to him, Do not take a wife from among the women of Canaan;

7 And that Jacob had done as his father and mother said and had gone to Paddan-aram;

8 It was clear to Esau that his father had no love for the women of Canaan,

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

10 So Jacob went out from Beer-sheba to go to Haran.

11 And coming to a certain place, he made it his resting-place for the night, for the sun had gone down; and he took one of the stones which were there, and putting it under his head he went to sleep in that place.

12 And he had a dream, and in his dream he saw steps stretching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on them.

13 And he saw the Lord by his side, saying, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: I will give to you and to your seed this land on which you are sleeping.

14 Your seed will be like the dust of the earth, covering all the land to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south: you and your seed will be a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.

15 And truly, I will be with you, and will keep you wherever you go, guiding you back again to this land; and I will not give you up till I have done what I have said to you.

16 And Jacob, awaking from his sleep, said, Truly, the Lord is in this place and I was not conscious of it.

17 And fear came on him, and he said, This is a holy place; this is nothing less than the house of God and the doorway of heaven.

18 And early in the morning Jacob took the stone which had been under his head, and put it up as a pillar and put oil on it.

19 And he gave that place the name of Beth-el, but before that time the town was named Luz.

20 Then Jacob took an oath, and said, If God will be with me, and keep me safe on my journey, and give me food and clothing to put on,

21 So that I come again to my father's house in peace, then I will take the Lord to be my God,

22 And this stone which I have put up for a pillar will be God's house: and of all you give me, I will give a tenth part to you.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3698

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3698. 'He dreamed' means foresight. This is clear from the meaning of 'dreaming' in the internal sense as foretelling things to come, for prophetical dreams, which were Divine, were foretellings of things to come, as becomes clear from the dreams described in the Word, 1975, 1976. Because 'dreams' and 'dreaming' in the internal sense mean things to come, foresight is meant in the highest sense in which the subject is the Lord, for the Lord's Divine foresight is the source of foretellings of things to come. The fact that the foretellings of events which are out of the ordinary and cannot therefore be foreseen have no other origin becomes clear from the Word, as from the following words in Moses,

When a prophet has spoken in the name of Jehovah but that event has not happened or taken place it was not Jehovah who spoke. The prophet spoke it presumptuously. Deuteronomy 18:22.

[2] And even the foretellings of events which did take place may have been made by evil people and worshippers of another god, as stated in the same book,

If a prophet or the dreamer of a dream arises in the midst of you, and gives you a sign or else a wonder, and the sign or wonder he has told you comes to pass, and he says, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them; you shall not obey the words of that prophet or the dreamer of that dream; for Jehovah your God is testing you. Deuteronomy 13:1-3.

From these words it is evident that the actual foretelling originated in the Divine but the incitement to worship other gods in the proprium of the prophet, who was allowed to make such a suggestion to people so that they could be tested, as is stated. This among other reasons is also why on many occasions in former times people who worshipped the baals and other gods even prophesied, saw visions, and dreamed dreams, and also why what they uttered actually happened, so that they frequently led others astray. These people are referred to in Jeremiah 23. And besides these there were others called diviners, soothsayers, sorcerers, familiar spirits, among those who applied themselves to natural magic, from which nothing at all Divine could be foretold, only what was contrary to the Divine, that is, to the Lord, and contrary to the good of love and to the truth of faith in Him. This is magic, no matter what it looks like in outward appearance.

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