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Genesis 17

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1 And Abram was ninety-nine years old, when Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said to him, I [am] the Almighty ùGod: walk before my face, and be perfect.

2 And I will set my covenant between me and thee, and will very greatly multiply thee.

3 And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying,

4 It is I: behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of a multitude of nations.

5 And thy name shall no more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.

6 And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.

8 And I give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be a God to them.

9 And God said to Abraham, And [as for] thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations.

10 This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee -- that every male among you be circumcised.

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and [that] shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

12 And at eight days old shall every male in your generations be circumcised among you -- he who is born in the house, and he who is bought with money, any stranger who is not of thy seed.

13 He who is born in thy house, and he who is bought with thy money, must be circumcised; and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

14 And the uncircumcised male who hath not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his peoples: he hath broken my covenant.

15 And God said to Abraham, [As to] Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

16 And I will bless her, and I will give thee a son also of her; and I will bless her, and she shall become nations: kings of peoples shall be of her.

17 And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall [a child] be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?

18 And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!

19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall indeed bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.

20 And for Ishmael I have heard thee: behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful, and will very greatly multiply him; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to thee at this appointed time in the next year.

22 And he left off talking with him; and God went up from Abraham.

23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money -- every male among the people of Abraham's house -- and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that same day, as God had said to him.

24 And Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

26 In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son;

27 and all the men of his house, born in his house, or bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #3667

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3667. And God Shaddai will bless thee. That this signifies the temptations of that truth and good through which there is conjunction, is evident from the signification of “God Shaddai,” as being temptations (concerning which signification in what follows); and from the signification of being “blessed,” as being conjunction (see n. 3504, 3514, 3530, 3565, 3584). Inasmuch as by Jacob is now represented the good of truth, as before shown (n. 3659), therefore that good and truth are here meant by “thee.” The reason why “God Shaddai” signifies temptations, is that in ancient times they distinguished the Supreme God (that is, the Lord) by various names, and this in accordance with His attributes, and in accordance with the goods which are from Him, and also in accordance with the truths, the multiplicity of which is a fact that is known to everyone. They who were of the Ancient Church by all these appellations understood only one God, namely, the Lord, whom they called Jehovah; but after the church had declined from good and truth, and at the same time from this wisdom, they began to worship as many gods as there were appellations of the one God; insomuch that every nation, and at last every family, acknowledged one of them for its own god; hence came the many gods of which mention is often made in the Word.

[2] The same thing took place in the family of Terah the father of Abraham, and also in the house of Abraham himself, who worshiped other gods (as may be seen above, n. 1356, 2559), and especially the God Shaddai (n. 1992). That the worship of this God remained in that house, is evident also from these words in Moses:

I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, in God Shaddai, but by My name Jehovah I was not known to them (Exodus 6:3).

This is the reason why it was said to Abraham: “I am God Shaddai; walk before Me, and be perfect” (Genesis 17:1); and why it is here said by Isaac to Jacob, “God Shaddai will bless thee.” That this is the case is also clearly evident from what follows in this chapter, in that after the Lord had said to Jacob in a dream, “I am Jehovah the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac” (verse 13), still Jacob afterwards said, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way wherein I walk, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, and I return in peace to my father’s house, then Jehovah shall be to me for God” (verses 20-21); from which it is evident that neither did the house of Jacob acknowledge Jehovah; but that Jacob would acknowledge Him as his God if He would be his benefactor-just as is the case at this day in Christian Gentilism.

[3] But as specifically regards God Shaddai, the Lord had been so called in the Ancient Church with respect to temptations and to blessings and benefits after temptations, as was shown in Second Part (n. 1992). This is the reason why by “God Shaddai” in the internal sense are signified temptations. That by temptations is effected a conjunction of good and truth, see what has already been stated and shown concerning temptations (n. 2819).

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