The Bible

 

Genesis 28

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1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

2 Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother.

3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

4 And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land in which thou art a stranger, which God gave to Abraham.

5 And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

7 And that Jacob obeyed his father, and his mother, and was gone to Padan-aram;

8 And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;

9 Then went Esau to Ishmael, and took to the wives which he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

10 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went towards Haran.

11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set: and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

12 And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

13 And behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land on which thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

15 And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have declared to thee.

16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

18 And Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it.

19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

21 So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth to thee.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3735

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3735. 'And clothing to wear' means being joined to Divine Truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'clothing' as truth, dealt with in 1073, 2576, Divine Truth here since the Lord is the subject; and from the meaning of 'wearing' as making it one's own and being joined to it. As for the nature of the internal sense of the Word, that becomes clear from these and all other details; that is to say, when the sense of the letter refers to bread and to clothing, and also when it does so within historical narrative, as here in 'If God will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear', the angels present with a person at the time have no thought at all of bread but of the good of love, and in the highest sense, of the Lord's Divine Good. Nor do they have any thought at all of clothing but of truth, and in the highest sense, of the Lord's Divine Truth. To them such things as are referred to in the sense of the letter are simply objects for thought regarding heavenly and Divine matters, for such things are vessels existing in the ultimate degree of order.

[2] So when with holiness of mind a person thinks about bread - for example, when he thinks about the bread in the Holy Supper, or about the daily bread in the Lord's Prayer - that thought which he has about bread serves the angels present with him as an object for thought regarding the good of love which comes from the Lord. For the angels do not take hold of anything at all of the person's actual thought concerning bread, but instead their thought concerns good; for such is the correspondence between the two. It is similar when with holiness of mind a person thinks about clothing. The angels' thought in that case concerns truth. So it is with everything else in the Word. From this the nature of the joining together of heaven and earth by means of the Word becomes clear; that is to say, the joining together is such that when with holiness of mind anyone reads the Word he is joined by means of such correspondences more closely to heaven, and through heaven to the Lord, even though that person's thought is concerned solely with things in the Word which are stated in the sense of the letter. His holiness of mind at that time is the product of the influx of celestial and spiritual thoughts and affections such as exist with angels.

[3] So that such influx might exist and from that influx man might be joined to the Lord, the Lord has instituted the Holy Supper where it is explicitly stated that the Lord is the bread and wine. For the Lord's body means His Divine love, and the reciprocal love in man, love such as exists with celestial angels, while His blood in a similar way means His Divine love, and the reciprocal love in man, but love such as exists with spiritual angels. From this it is evident how much of the Divine there is within every individual part of the Word, though man does not know what that Divine content is or the nature of it. People however who, while in the world, have led a good life enter after death into cognitions and a perception of all those things, for at that time they cast off earthly and worldly things and take to themselves heavenly ones, and have, like angels, spiritual and celestial ideas.

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