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Genesis 13

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1 And Abram returned from Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

2 And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

3 And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;

4 To the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

5 And Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.

6 And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

7 And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land.

8 And Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren.

9 Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou wilt depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest to Zoar.

11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent towards Sodom.

13 But the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the LORD, exceedingly.

14 And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:

15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.

18 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar to the LORD.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #1443

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1443. As regards “the oak-grove Moreh” being the first perception, the case is this. There are with man things intellectual, things rational, and things of memory [scientifica]; his inmost things are intellectual, his interior things are rational, and his exterior things are those of the memory [scientifica]; all these are called his spiritual things, which are in the order here given. The intellectual things of the celestial man are compared to a garden of trees of every kind; his rational things, to a forest of cedars and similar trees, such as there were in Lebanon; but his memory-knowledges [scientifica] are compared to oak-groves, and this from their intertwined branches such as are those of the oak. By trees themselves are signified perceptions; as by the trees of the garden of Eden eastward, inmost perceptions, or those of intellectual things (as before shown, n. 99, 100, 103) by the trees of the forest of Lebanon, interior perceptions, or those of rational things; but by the trees of an oak-grove, exterior perceptions, or those of memory-knowledges, which belong to the external man. Hence it is that “the oak-grove Moreh” signifies the Lord’s first perception; for He was as yet a child, and His spiritual things were not more interior than this. Besides, the oak-grove Moreh was where the sons of Israel also first came when they passed over the Jordan and saw the land of Canaan, concerning which in Moses:

Thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanite that dwelleth in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the oak-groves of Moreh (Deuteronomy 11:29-30);

by which also is signified the first of perception, for the entrance of the sons of Israel represents the entrance of the faithful into the Lord’s kingdom.

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