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Genesis 31

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1 And he heareth the words of Laban's sons, saying, `Jacob hath taken all that our father hath; yea, from that which our father hath, he hath made all this honour;'

2 and Jacob seeth the face of Laban, and lo, it is not with him as heretofore.

3 And Jehovah saith unto Jacob, `Turn back unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred, and I am with thee.'

4 And Jacob sendeth and calleth for Rachel and for Leah to the field unto his flock;

5 and saith to them, `I am beholding your father's face -- that it is not towards me as heretofore, and the God of my father hath been with me,

6 and ye -- ye have known that with all my power I have served your father,

7 and your father hath played upon me, and hath changed my hire ten times; and God hath not suffered him to do evil with me.

8 `If he say thus: The speckled are thy hire, then bare all the flock speckled ones; and if he say thus: The ring-straked are thy hire, then bare all the flock ring-straked;

9 and God taketh away the substance of your father, and doth give to me.

10 `And it cometh to pass at the time of the flock conceiving, that I lift up mine eyes and see in a dream, and lo, the he-goats, which are going up on the flock, [are] ring-straked, speckled, and grisled;

11 and the messenger of God saith unto me in the dream, Jacob, and I say, Here [am] I.

12 `And He saith, Lift up, I pray thee, thine eyes, and see -- all the he-goats which are going up on the flock [are] ring-straked, speckled, and grisled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to thee;

13 I [am] the God of Bethel where thou hast anointed a standing pillar, where thou hast vowed a vow to me; now, arise, go out from this land, and turn back unto the land of thy birth.'

14 And Rachel answereth -- Leah also -- and saith to him, `Have we yet a portion and inheritance in the house of our father?

15 have we not been reckoned strangers to him? for he hath sold us, and he also utterly consumeth our money;

16 for all the wealth which God hath taken away from our father, it [is] ours, and our children's; and now, all that God hath said unto thee -- do.'

17 And Jacob riseth, and lifteth up his sons and his wives on the camels,

18 and leadeth all his cattle, and all his substance which he hath acquired, the cattle of his getting, which he hath acquired in Padan-Aram, to go unto Isaac his father, to the land of Canaan.

19 And Laban hath gone to shear his flock, and Rachel stealeth the teraphim which her father hath;

20 and Jacob deceiveth the heart of Laban the Aramaean, because he hath not declared to him that he is fleeing;

21 and he fleeth, he and all that he hath, and riseth, and passeth over the River, and setteth his face [toward] the mount of Gilead.

22 And it is told to Laban on the third day that Jacob hath fled,

23 and he taketh his brethren with him, and pursueth after him a journey of seven days, and overtaketh him in the mount of Gilead.

24 And God cometh in unto Laban the Aramaean in a dream of the night, and saith to him, `Take heed to thyself lest thou speak with Jacob from good unto evil.'

25 And Laban overtaketh Jacob; and Jacob hath fixed his tent in the mount; and Laban with his brethren have fixed [theirs] in the mount of Gilead.

26 And Laban saith to Jacob, `What hast thou done that thou dost deceive my heart, and lead away my daughters as captives of the sword?

27 Why hast thou hidden thyself to flee, and deceivest me, and hast not declared to me, and I send thee away with joy and with songs, with tabret and with harp,

28 and hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? -- now thou hast acted foolishly in doing [so];

29 my hand is to God to do evil with you, but the God of your father yesternight hath spoken unto me, saying, Take heed to thyself from speaking with Jacob from good unto evil.

30 `And now, thou hast certainly gone, because thou hast been very desirous for the house of thy father; why hast thou stolen my gods?'

31 And Jacob answereth and saith to Laban, `Because I was afraid, for I said, Lest thou take violently away thy daughters from me;

32 with whomsoever thou findest thy gods -- he doth not live; before our brethren discern for thyself what [is] with me, and take to thyself:' and Jacob hath not known that Rachel hath stolen them.

33 And Laban goeth into the tent of Jacob, and into the tent of Leah, and into the tent of the two handmaidens, and hath not found; and he goeth out from the tent of Leah, and goeth into the tent of Rachel.

34 And Rachel hath taken the teraphim, and putteth them in the furniture of the camel, and sitteth upon them; and Laban feeleth all the tent, and hath not found;

35 and she saith unto her father, `Let it not be displeasing in the eyes of my lord that I am not able to rise at thy presence, for the way of women [is] on me;' and he searcheth, and hath not found the teraphim.

36 And it is displeasing to Jacob, and he striveth with Laban; and Jacob answereth and saith to Laban, `What [is] my transgression? what my sin, that thou hast burned after me?

37 for thou hast felt all my vessels: what hast thou found of all the vessels of thy house? set here before my brethren, and thy brethren, and they decide between us both.

38 `These twenty years I [am] with thee: thy ewes and thy she-goats have not miscarried, and the rams of thy flock I have not eaten;

39 the torn I have not brought in unto thee -- I, I repay it -- from my hand thou dost seek it; I have been deceived by day, and I have been deceived by night;

40 I have been [thus]: in the day consumed me hath drought, and frost by night, and wander doth my sleep from mine eyes.

41 `This [is] to me twenty years in thy house: I have served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock; and thou changest my hire ten times;

42 unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been for me, surely now empty thou hadst sent me away; mine affliction and the labour of my hands hath God seen, and reproveth yesternight.'

43 And Laban answereth and saith unto Jacob, `The daughters [are] my daughters, and the sons my sons, and the flock my flock, and all that thou art seeing [is] mine; and to my daughters -- what do I to these to-day, or to their sons whom they have born?

44 and now, come, let us make a covenant, I and thou, and it hath been for a witness between me and thee.'

45 And Jacob taketh a stone, and lifteth it up [for] a standing pillar;

46 and Jacob saith to his brethren, `Gather stones,' and they take stones, and make a heap; and they eat there on the heap;

47 and Laban calleth it Jegar-Sahadutha; and Jacob hath called it Galeed.

48 And Laban saith, `This heap [is] witness between me and thee to-day;' therefore hath he called its name Galeed;

49 Mizpah also, for he said, `Jehovah doth watch between me and thee, for we are hidden one from another;

50 if thou afflict my daughters, or take wives beside my daughters -- there is no man with us -- see, God [is] witness between me and thee.'

51 And Laban saith to Jacob, `Lo, this heap, and lo, the standing pillar which I have cast between me and thee;

52 this heap [is] witness, and the standing pillar [is] witness, that I do not pass over this heap unto thee, and that thou dost not pass over this heap and this standing pillar unto me -- for evil;

53 the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, doth judge between us -- the God of their father,' and Jacob sweareth by the Fear of his father Isaac.

54 And Jacob sacrificeth a sacrifice in the mount, and calleth to his brethren to eat bread, and they eat bread, and lodge in the mount;

55 and Laban riseth early in the morning, and kisseth his sons and his daughters, and blesseth them; and Laban goeth on, and turneth back to his place.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3726

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3726. 'And placed it as a pillar' means a holy boundary. This is clear from the meaning of 'a pillar', dealt with in the next paragraph. The meaning here becomes clear from what has gone before, that is to say, the subject is the order by which the Lord made Divine His Natural, and in the representative sense how the Lord makes new or regenerates man's natural. The nature of that order has been stated and shown above in various places, that is to say, order is inverted while a person is being regenerated, and truth is placed first; but proper order is restored once that person has been regenerated, and good is in first place and truth in the last; see 3325, 3330, 3332, 3336, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3688. This was represented by the stairway by which angels were going up and coming down, where first it is said that they were going up, and then that they were coming down, 3701. This going up is the subject at present, that is to say, a going up from the ultimate degree of order, which is referred to just above in 3720, 3721. Here therefore truth as it exists in the ultimate degree of order is meant. This ultimate degree is called a holy boundary, and is meant by the stone which Jacob took and placed as a pillar. The existence of truth as the ultimate degree of order becomes clear from the consideration that good cannot be encompassed by good, only by truth, for truth is the recipient of good, 2261, 2434, 3049, 3068, 3180, 3318, 3387, 3470, 3570.

[2] Good with a person which is devoid of truth, that is, which is not joined to any truth, is like the good which exists with young children, with whom as yet no wisdom at all is present because no intelligence at all is there. But as a young child grows older so he receives truth stemming from good, that is, as in his case truth is joined to good, so he becomes more truly human. From this it is evident that good is the primary degree of order and truth the ultimate. Consequently from facts which are the truths of the natural man, and then from matters of doctrine which are the truths of the spiritual man within its natural, a person must start to be introduced into the intelligence that leads to wisdom, that is, he must start to enter into spiritual life which makes a person human, 3504. For example, to be able to love the neighbour as a spiritual man does, a person must first learn what spiritual love or charity is, and who the neighbour is. Until he knows these things, he is indeed able to love the neighbour, but only as a natural man, not as a spiritual man does; that is, his love towards the neighbour is a product of natural good, not of spiritual good, see 3470, 3471. But once he does know those things spiritual good from the Lord may be implanted within cognitions concerning love towards the neighbour. The same applies to all other things that are called cognitions, matters of doctrine, or truths in general.

[3] Reference is being made here to good from the Lord that may be implanted within cognitions, and also to truth that is the recipient of good. But people who have no other conception of cognitions, and also of truths, than that these exist as mere abstractions - which is most people's conception too of thoughts - cannot possibly grasp what is meant by good implanted within cognitions or by truth that is the recipient of good. But it should be recognized that cognitions and truths no more exist in isolation from the purest substances belonging to the interior man or man's spirit than sight exists in isolation from its own organ, which is the eye, or hearing from its own organ, which is the ear. There are purer substances, which have real existence, and it is from these that cognitions and truths are brought into actual being. The variations in form taken by those substances are such that they give life to and modify those cognitions through the influx of life from the Lord and enable them to be apprehended. And it is the agreements and harmonious relationships of those substances, whether these exist consecutively or simultaneously, that stir people's affections and constitute that which is called beautiful, pleasant, and delightful.

[4] Spirits themselves are forms, that is, they consist, as much as men do, of a whole combination of forms. But those forms consist of purer substances not visible to the sight of the body, that is, of the eye. Now because those forms or substances are not visible to the eye of the body mankind today inevitably conceives of cognitions and thoughts as mere abstractions. This is also the reason for the insanity of our times, in that people do not believe that they have a spirit within them which will live after the body has died - yet the spirit is a substance far more real than the material substance constituting the body. Indeed, if you can believe it, following its release from bodily things the spirit is the purified body itself, which many say they will possess at the time of the last judgement when, they believe, they will first be resurrected. The fact that spirits, or what amounts to the same, souls, are endowed with a body, see one another in broad daylight, talk to one another, hear one another, and actually have far keener senses than when they were in the body or the world, becomes quite clear from what I have told so abundantly from experience.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1327

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1327. 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth' means the state of this Ancient Church, that internal worship started to perish. This is clear from the fact that the phrase used is 'the lip of the whole earth' and not, as previously in verse 7, the lip of those who started to build a city and a tower. 'The face of the whole earth' means the state of the Church since 'the earth' is the Church, as shown already in 662, 1066. The story of the Churches after the Flood is as follows: There were three Churches which receive specific mention in the Word - the first Ancient Church which took its name from Noah, the second Ancient Church which took its name from Eber, and the third Ancient Church which took its name from Jacob, and subsequently from Judah and Israel.

[2] As regards the first Ancient Church, that called Noah, this was the parent so to speak of those that followed, and as is usually the case with Churches in their earliest phases, it was more untarnished and innocent, as is also clear from verse 1 of this chapter which says that it had one lip, that is, one doctrine. That is to say, everyone regarded charity as the essential. But in the course of time, as usually happens to Churches, that Church also started to decline, chiefly because many people started to divert worship to themselves so as to set themselves above others, as is clear from verse 4 above - 'they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, and its head in heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves'. In the Church such people were inevitably like some fermenting agent, or like firebrands that start a fire. When the danger of profaning what is holy was consequently near at hand, referred to in 571, 582, the state of this Church was, in the Lord's Providence, altered. That is to say, its internal worship perished but its external worship remained, which here is meant by the statement that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth'. From this it is also clear that the kind of worship called Babel was not prevalent in the first Ancient Church but in those that followed when people started to be worshipped in place of gods, especially after they had died. This was the origin of so many pagan deities.

[3] The reason internal worship was allowed to perish and external remain was to prevent what is holy being profaned. The profanation of what is holy carries eternal condemnation with it. Nobody is able to profane what is holy unless he possesses cognitions of faith and also acknowledges them. Anyone who does not possess them cannot acknowledge them, still less profane them. It is internal things which may be profaned, for it is in internal things, not external, that holiness resides. The situation is similar with someone who does evil but does not have evil in mind. The evil he does cannot be attributed to him any more than to someone who does not deliberately intend evil, or to anyone devoid of rationality. Thus anyone who does not believe in the existence of a life after death, but who nevertheless has external worship, cannot profane the things that belong to eternal life because he does not believe that they exist. The situation is different with those who do know and acknowledge them.

[4] This too is why a person is allowed rather to live engrossed in lusts and pleasures, and so to isolate himself from internal things, than to enter into a knowledge and acknowledgement of internal things and so profane them. The Jews of today therefore are allowed to immerse themselves in avarice so that in this way they may be removed from an acknowledgement of internal things, for they are the kind of people who, if they acknowledged them, would inevitably profane them. Nothing does more to isolate a person from internal things than avarice, for this is the lowest of all earthly desires. The same applies to many inside the Church, and to gentiles outside, though gentiles, least of all people, are able to profane anything. This then is the reason for the statement here that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth', and the reason why these words mean that the state of the Church was altered, that is to say, its worship became external, having no internal worship within it.

[5] The same situation was represented and meant by the Babylonish captivity into which the Israelites, and later on the Jews, were carried away. This is spoken of in Jeremiah as follows,

And there will be a nation and a kingdom that will not serve the king of Babel, and who will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babel. With the sword and famine and pestilence I will visit this people, until I have consumed it by his hand. Jeremiah 27:8 and following verses.

'Serving the king of Babel and putting its neck in his yoke' is being utterly deprived of the knowledge and acknowledgement of the good and the truth of faith, and so of internal worship.

[6] The point is clearer still in the same prophet,

Thus said Jehovah to all the people in this city, your brethren who did not go out with you into captivity, thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, Behold, I am sending on them the sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs. Jeremiah 29:16-17.

'Remaining in the city and not going out to the king of Babel' represented and meant people who possessed the cognitions of internal things, that is, of the truths of faith, and who profaned them - people on whom, it is said, He was sending 'the sword, famine, and pestilence', which are forms of punishment for profanation, and whom He was making 'like rotten figs'.

[7] That 'Babel' means people who deprive others of all knowledge and acknowledgement of truth was also represented and meant by the following words in the same prophet,

I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babel, and he will carry them off to Babel, and will smite them with the sword. And I will give over all the wealth of this city, and all its labour, and all its precious things; and I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, and they will plunder them and seize them. Jeremiah 20:4-5.

Here 'all its wealth, all its lab our, all its precious things, all the treasures of the kings of Judah' means in the internal sense cognitions of faith.

[8] In the same prophet,

With the families of the north I will bring the king of Babel against this land and against its inhabitants, and against all those nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them into a ruin, a hissing, and everlasting wastes. And this whole land will be a waste. Jeremiah 25:9, 11.

Here 'Babel' is used to describe the vastation of the interior things of faith, that is, of internal worship. Indeed, as shown already, anyone whose worship is worship of self possesses no truth of faith. He destroys and lays waste, and leads off into captivity, everything that is true. This is why Babel is also called 'a destroying mountain' in Jeremiah 51:25.

For more concerning Babel, see what has been stated already in 1182.

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