The Bible

 

Genesis 35

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1 And God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar to God, who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.

2 Then Jacob said to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:

3 And let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.

4 And they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and the ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

5 And they journeyed: and the terror of God was on the cities that were round them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

6 So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (that is Beth-el) he and all the people that were with him.

7 And he erected there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el; because there God appeared to him, when he fled from the face of his brother.

8 But Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Beth-el, under an oak: and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth.

9 And God appeared to Jacob again when he came out of Padan-aram; and blessed him.

10 And God said to him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; and he called his name Israel.

11 And God said to him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a multitude of nations shall spring from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.

12 And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.

13 And God went up from him, in the place where he talked with him.

14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.

15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Beth-el.

16 And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor.

17 And it came to pass when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.

18 And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.

19 And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem.

20 And Jacob set a pillar on her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day.

21 And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar.

22 And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:

23 The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob's first-born, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun:

24 The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin:

25 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali:

26 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad, and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Padan-aram.

27 And Jacob came to Isaac his father to Mamre, to the city of Arbah (which is Hebron) where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.

28 And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years.

29 And Isaac expired and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #4564

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4564. 'And was buried below Bethel under an oak' means cast away for ever. This is clear from the meaning of 'being buried' as being cast away, for that which is buried is cast away; and from the meaning of 'under an oak' as for ever, dealt with above in 4552. 'Below Bethel' means outside the natural, for that which is said to be beneath or below is in the internal sense outside, 2148; 'Bethel' is the Divine Natural 4089, 4539.

[2] The implication of this is that with a person who is being regenerated, neither hereditary evil nor that of his own doing is removed in such a way as to disappear or be eliminated, but is merely separated and through the rearrangement effected by the Lord is cast away to the most outlying parts, 4551, 4552. It accordingly remains with that person, and does so for ever, but he is withheld from evil by the Lord and maintained in good. When this happens it seems as though evils have been cast away and the person has been purified from them or, as it is said, made righteous. All the angels of heaven confess that in their case, insofar as anything originates in themselves it is entirely evil and consequently false, but insofar as it originates in the Lord it is good and consequently true.

[3] People who have adopted any other notion concerning this matter, and who from the teaching they received while living in the world have become convinced that they have been made righteous and are in that case without sins, and so are holy, are taken back to the state where their evils reigned - both those of their own doing and those received through heredity. They are then kept in that state until they know from personal experience that of themselves they are nothing but evil and the good which had seemed to them to be their own came from the Lord, and that therefore it was not theirs but the Lord's. This is the situation with angels, as it is with the regenerate among men.

[4] But in the Lord's case it was different. He entirely removed, cast out, and cast away from Himself all hereditary evil from His mother, for being conceived from Jehovah He had no evil by heredity from His Father, only from His Mother. This is the difference; and this is what is meant by the Lord's being made Righteousness, the Holy itself, and the Divine.

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