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Genesis 33

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1 And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he distributed the children to Leah, and to Rachel, and to the two maidservants:

2 and he put the maidservants and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindmost.

3 And he passed on before them, and bowed to the earth seven times, until he came near to his brother.

4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

5 And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with thee? And he said, The children that God has graciously given thy servant.

6 And the maidservants drew near, they and their children, and they bowed.

7 And Leah also, with her children, drew near, and they bowed. And lastly Joseph drew near, and Rachel, and they bowed.

8 And he said, What [meanest] thou by all the drove which I met? And he said, To find favour in the eyes of my lord.

9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.

10 And Jacob said, No, I pray thee; if now I have found favour in thine eyes, then receive my gift from my hand; for therefore have I seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou hast received me with pleasure.

11 Take, I pray thee, my blessing which has been brought to thee; because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything. And he urged him, and he took [it].

12 And he said, Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee.

13 And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die.

14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass on before his servant, and I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir.

15 And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee [some] of the people that are with me. And he said, What need? Let me find favour in the eyes of my lord.

16 And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth.

18 And Jacob came safely [to the] city Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-Aram; and he encamped before the city.

19 And he bought the portion of the field where he had spread his tent, of the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred kesitahs.

20 And there he set up an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #4353

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4353. And kissed him. That this signifies interior conjunction from love, is evident from the signification of “kissing,” as being conjunction from love (see n. 3573, 3574, 4215), here interior conjunction. In this verse the conjunction of the Divine good of the natural which is “Esau,” with the truth there which is “Jacob,” is treated of in general; but in what follows this conjunction is described specifically. As regards the conjunction itself, it is this which effects man’s regeneration; for man is regenerated by the fact that the truths in him are being conjoined with good, that is, that the things which belong to faith are being conjoined with those which belong to charity. The process is fully described in these and the following verses. The Lord is indeed the subject treated of how He made His natural Divine, consequently how He united Divine good to the truth in His natural. But as man’s regeneration is an image of the Lord’s glorification (n. 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490), this regeneration is also treated of at the same time in the internal sense. And as regeneration can fall into man’s idea, but not so fully the Lord’s glorification, the latter may be illustrated by the former.

[2] It is manifest from what has been explained that the conjunction of good with truths (by which regeneration is effected) progresses more and more interiorly; that is, truths are successively conjoined more interiorly with good. For the end of regeneration is that the internal man may be conjoined with the external, thus the spiritual with the natural through the rational. Without the conjunction of both of these there is no regeneration. Nor can this conjunction be effected until good has first been conjoined with truths in the natural; for the natural must be the plane, and the things that are in the natural must correspond. This is the reason why when the natural is being regenerated, the conjunction of good with truths becomes successively more interior. For the spiritual conjoins itself first with the things which are inmost in the natural, and then by means of these with those which are more exterior. Nor can man’s internal conjoin itself with his external, unless the truth in the external becomes the good of truth, that is, truth in will and act (n. 4337); for then for the first time they can be conjoined, inasmuch as the Lord flows in with man through his internal man, and in fact through the good therein. This good can be conjoined with good in the external man, but not good with truth immediately.

[3] From this it may be seen that the truth in man must first become truth in will and act (that is, the good of truth), before the conjunction of the rational with the natural, or the internal man with the external, can take place. But how truth becomes the good of truth, must be evident to everyone who pays attention. All Divine truth regards these two precepts-to love God above all things, and the neighbor as one’s self. It is these precepts from which and for the sake of which truths are, and to which truths tend, more nearly and more remotely. Therefore when truths are put into act, they are instilled successively into their beginning and their end, namely, into charity toward the neighbor, and into love to the Lord; and thereby truth becomes good, which is called the good of truth; and when this takes place, it can then be conjoined with the internal man, which conjunction becomes successively more interior, in proportion as more interior truths are implanted in this good. Act precedes, man’s willing follows; for that which a man does from the understanding, he at last does from the will, and finally puts it on as a habit; and it is then instilled in his rational or internal man. And when it has been instilled in this, the man no longer does good from truth, but from good; for he then begins to perceive therein somewhat of blessedness, and as it were somewhat of heaven. This remains with him after death, and by means of it he is uplifted into heaven by the Lord.

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