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Genesis 32

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1 And Jacob hath gone on his way, and messengers of God come upon him;

2 and Jacob saith, when he hath seen them, `This [is] the camp of God;' and he calleth the name of that place `Two Camps.'

3 And Jacob sendeth messengers before him unto Esau his brother, towards the land of Seir, the field of Edom,

4 and commandeth them, saying, `Thus do ye say to my lord, to Esau: Thus said thy servant Jacob, With Laban I have sojourned, and I tarry until now;

5 and I have ox, and ass, flock, and man-servant, and maid-servant, and I send to declare to my lord, to find grace in his eyes.'

6 And the messengers turn back unto Jacob, saying, `We came in unto thy brother, unto Esau, and he also is coming to meet thee, and four hundred men with him;'

7 and Jacob feareth exceedingly, and is distressed, and he divideth the people who [are] with him, and the flock, and the herd, and the camels, into two camps,

8 and saith, `If Esau come in unto the one camp, and have smitten it -- then the camp which is left hath been for an escape.'

9 And Jacob saith, `God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Jehovah who saith unto me, Turn back to thy land, and to thy kindred, and I do good with thee:

10 I have been unworthy of all the kind acts, and of all the truth which Thou hast done with thy servant -- for, with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

11 `Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I am fearing him, less he come and have smitten me -- mother beside sons;

12 and Thou -- Thou hast said, I certainly do good with thee, and have set thy seed as the sand of the sea, which is not numbered because of the multitude.'

13 And he lodgeth there during that night, and taketh from that which is coming into his hand, a present for Esau his brother:

14 she-goats two hundred, and he-goats twenty, ewes two hundred, and rams twenty,

15 suckling camels and their young ones thirty, cows forty, and bullocks ten, she-asses twenty, and foals ten;

16 and he giveth into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and saith unto his servants, `Pass over before me, and a space ye do put between drove and drove.'

17 And he commandeth the first, saying, `When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and hath asked thee, saying, Whose [art] thou? and whither goest thou? and whose [are] these before thee?

18 then thou hast said, Thy servant Jacob's: it [is] a present sent to my lord, to Esau; and lo, he also [is] behind us.'

19 And he commandeth also the second, also the third, also all who are going after the droves, saying, `According to this manner do ye speak unto Esau in your finding him,

20 and ye have said also, Lo, thy servant Jacob [is] behind us;' for he said, `I pacify his face with the present which is going before me, and afterwards I see his face; it may be he lifteth up my face;'

21 and the present passeth over before his face, and he hath lodged during that night in the camp.

22 And he riseth in that night, and taketh his two wives, and his two maid-servants, and his eleven children, and passeth over the passage of Jabbok;

23 and he taketh them, and causeth them to pass over the brook, and he causeth that which he hath to pass over.

24 And Jacob is left alone, and one wrestleth with him till the ascending of the dawn;

25 and he seeth that he is not able for him, and he cometh against the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh is disjointed in his wrestling with him;

26 and he saith, `Send me away, for the dawn hath ascended:' and he saith, `I Send thee not away, except thou hast blessed me.'

27 And he saith unto him, `What [is] thy name?' and he saith, `Jacob.'

28 And he saith, `Thy name is no more called Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast been a prince with God and with men, and dost prevail.'

29 And Jacob asketh, and saith, `Declare, I pray thee, thy name;' and he saith, `Why [is] this, thou askest for My name?' and He blesseth him there.

30 And Jacob calleth the name of the place Peniel: for `I have seen God face unto face, and my life is delivered;'

31 and the sun riseth on him when he hath passed over Penuel, and he is halting on his thigh;

32 therefore the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew which shrank, which [is] on the hollow of the thigh, unto this day, because He came against the hollow of Jacob's thigh, against the sinew which shrank.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #4184

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4184. 'Laban answered and said to Jacob' means an obscure state of perception. This is clear from the meaning of 'answering and saying' as perception; for 'saying' in historical narratives of the Word means perceiving, see 1898, 1919, 2080, 2862, 3395, 3509. The fact that an obscure state of perception is meant is clear from the assertions made here by Laban - that the daughters, the sons, and the flock were his own, when in fact they were not. The meaning in the internal sense is that intermediate good claimed all goods and truths to itself. Regarding these assertions made by Laban, see what has been said already in 3974, 4113.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3509

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3509. 'And Rebekah said to Jacob her son - she said' means the Lord's perception from Divine Truth concerning natural truth. This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Divine Truth of the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 3012, 3013, 3077; from the meaning of 'saying' as perceiving, dealt with in 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, 2080, 2506, 2515, 2552, 2619; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the Lord's Natural as regards truth, dealt with in 3305. From this it is evident that 'Rebekah said to Jacob her son' means the Lord's perception from Divine Truth concerning natural truth. For on the one hand the Lord wished to acquire truth from the Divine Good of the Divine Rational, represented by 'Isaac', through the good of the Natural, represented by 'Esau', by means of which truth He would glorify, or make Divine, the Natural. But on the other hand the Lord wished to acquire truth from the Divine Truth of the Divine Rational, represented by 'Rebekah', through the truth of the Natural, represented by 'Jacob', by means of which truth He would glorify, or make Divine, the Rational. But these two wishes of His cannot be grasped unless light is thrown on the subject from what happens with man when being regenerated or made new by the Lord. And even then it cannot be grasped unless one knows the situation with the rational as regards good and as regards truth there. So let this matter be discussed briefly.

[2] The rational mind is distinguished into two separate mental powers, one called the will, the other the understanding. That which goes forth from the will when someone is being regenerated is called good, and that which goes forth from the understanding is called truth. Until a person has been regenerated the will does not act in unison with the understanding. Instead the will desires good whereas the understanding desires truth; and so different is each desire from the other that the effort of the will is perceived to be quite distinct and separate from that of the understanding. This is perceived however only by those who stop to reflect, knowing what the will is and the things that constitute this, and what the understanding is and the things that constitute that. But it is not perceived by those who do not know those things and therefore do not stop to reflect. And there is the added reason that the natural mind is regenerated by way of the rational mind, see 3493, and indeed according to order as follows: The good of the rational does not pass directly into the good of the natural and regenerate it but by way of truth which belongs to the understanding, thus giving the appearance that it enters in from the truth of the rational. These are the matters which this chapter deals with in the internal sense; for 'Isaac' is the rational mind as regards good present in the will, 'Rebekah' as regards truth present in the understanding. 'Esau' is the good of the natural springing from the good of the rational, 'Jacob' the truth of the natural springing from the good of the rational by way of the truth there.

[3] These considerations show the kind of arcana contained in the internal sense of the Word; yet there are very few which can be described in a way intelligible to the human mind. The number of those which are beyond man's comprehension and defy description is unlimited. For the more deeply the Word goes, that is, the more interiorly into heaven, the more unlimited and also the more indescribable do they become not only to man but also to angels of the lower heaven. And when it reaches the inmost heaven the angels there perceive that the arcana are infinite and, being Divine are quite beyond their comprehension. Such is the nature of the Word.

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