4336. GENESIS 33

1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children over unto Leah, and over unto Rachel, and over unto the two handmaids.

2. And he put the handmaids and their children first, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph after.

3. And he himself passed over before them, and bowed himself to the earth seven times, until he drew near even unto his brother.

4. And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

5. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are these to thee? And he said, The children whom God hath graciously bestowed upon thy servant.

6. And the handmaids drew near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves.

7. And Leah also and her children drew near, and they bowed themselves; and afterwards Joseph and Rachel drew near, and bowed themselves.

8. And he said, What to thee are all these camps which I met? And he said, To find grace in the eyes of my lord.

9. And Esau said, I have much my brother, be to thee what is to thee.

10. And Jacob said, Nay I pray, if I pray I have found grace in thine eyes, then accept my present from my hand; for because that I have seen thy faces like seeing the faces of God, and thou hast accepted me.

11. Take I pray my blessing that is brought to thee; because God hath graciously bestowed upon me, and because I have all. And he urged him, and he took it.

12. And he said, Let us journey, and go, and I will go close by thee.

13. And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and that the flocks and the herds are suckling with me, and if they drive them on in one day, all the flocks will die.

14. Let my lord I pray pass over before his servant, and I will proceed slowly to the foot of the work that is before me, and to the foot of the children, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.

15. And Esau said, Let me set I pray with thee of the people who are with me. And he said, Wherefore is this? Let me find grace in the eyes of my lord.

16. And Esau returned in that day unto his way, unto Seir.

17. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him a house, and made booths for his acquisition; therefore he called the name of the place Succoth.

18. And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came thither from Paddan-aram, and encamped to the faces of the city.

19. And he bought the portion of the field, where he had stretched his tent, from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred kesitah.

20. And he erected there an altar, and he called it El Elohe Israel.

THE CONTENTS.

The subject here treated of in the internal sense is the conjunction of Divine good natural which is “Esau,” with the good of truth which is “Jacob;” thus the submission of the latter, and its instilling into Divine good natural. The process by which this is effected is described. Lastly the acquisition of interior truths is treated of.

3570. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat. That this signifies the conjunction of good first; and that “he brought him wine and he drank” signifies the conjunction of truth afterwards, is evident from the signification of “eating,” as being to be conjoined and appropriated in respect to good (concerning which just above, n. 3568); and from the signification of “wine,” as being the truth which is from good (n. 1071, 1798); and from the signification of “drinking,” as being to be conjoined and appropriated in respect to truth (n. 3168). In regard to the circumstance that the good of the rational, represented by Isaac, conjoins with itself good first, and truth afterwards, and this through the natural, which is Jacob, the case is this: When the natural is in the state in which it is outwardly good and inwardly truth (n. 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563), it then admits many things which are not good, but which nevertheless are useful, being means to good in their order. But the good of the rational does not conjoin and appropriate to itself from this source anything but that which is in agreement with its own good;, for good receives nothing else, and whatever disagrees, it rejects. The rest of the things in the natural it leaves, in order that they may serve as means for admitting and introducing more things that are in agreement with itself.

[2] The rational is in the internal man, and what is there being transacted is unknown to the natural, for it is above the sphere of its observation; and for this reason the man who lives a merely natural life cannot know anything of what is taking place with him in his internal man, that is, in his rational; for the Lord disposes all such things entirely without the man’s knowledge. Hence it is that man knows nothing of how he is being regenerated, and scarcely that he is being regenerated. But if he is desirous to know this, let him merely attend to the ends which he proposes to himself, and which he rarely discloses to anyone. If the ends are toward good, that is to say, if he cares more for his neighbor and the Lord than for himself, then he is in a state of regeneration; but if the ends are toward evil, that is to say, if he cares more for himself than for his neighbor and the Lord, let him know that in this case he is in no state of regeneration.

[3] Through his ends of life a man is in the other life; through ends of good in heaven with the angels; but through ends of evil in hell with devils. The ends in a man are nothing else than his loves; for that which a man loves he has for an end; and inasmuch as his ends are his loves, they are his inmost life (n. 1317, 1568, 1571, 1645, 1909, 3425, 3562, 3565). The ends of good in a man are in his rational, and these are what are called the rational as to good, or the good of the rational. Through the ends of good, or through the good therein, the Lord disposes all things that are in the natural; for the end is as the soul, and the natural is as the body of this soul; and such as the soul is, such is the body with which it is encompassed; thus such as the rational is as to good, such is the natural with which it is invested.

[4] It is known that the soul of man commences in the ovum of the mother, and is afterwards perfected in her womb, and is there encompassed with a tender body, and this of such a nature that through it the soul may be able to act in a manner suited to the world into which it is born. The case is the same when man is born again, that is, when he is being regenerated. The new soul which he then receives is the end of good, which commences in the rational, at first as in an ovum there, and afterwards is there perfected as in a womb; the tender body with which this soul is encompassed is the natural and the good therein, which becomes such as to act obediently in accordance with the ends of the soul; the truths therein are like the fibers in the body, for truths are formed from good (n. 3470). Hence it is evident that an image of the reformation of man is presented in his formation in the womb; and if you will believe it, it is also the celestial good and spiritual truth which are from the Lord that form him and then impart the power to receive each of them successively, and this in quality and quantity precisely as like a man he looks to the ends of heaven, and not like a brute animal to the ends of the world.

[5] That the rational as to good through the natural conjoins with itself good first, and truth afterwards, which is signified by Jacob’s bringing dainties and bread to Isaac and his eating, and bringing him wine and his drinking, may also be illustrated by the offices which the body performs for its soul. It is the soul which gives to the body to have appetite for food, and also to enjoy the taste of it, the foods being introduced by means of the delight of appetite and the delight of taste, thus by means of external good; but the foods which are introduced do not all enter the life, for some serve as menstruums for digesting; some for tempering; some for opening; some for introducing into the vessels; but the good foods selected are introduced into the blood, and become blood, out of which the soul conjoins with itself such things as are of use.

[6] The case is the same with the rational and the natural: to appetite and taste correspond the desire and the affection of knowing truth; and knowledges correspond to foods (n. 1480); and because they correspond, they are circumstanced in like manner; the soul (which is the good of the rational) gives to long for and to be affected with the things which are of memory-knowledge and of doctrine, and introduces them through the delight of the longing and the good of the affection. But the things which it introduces are not all such as to become the good of life; for some serve as means for a kind of digesting and tempering; some for opening and introducing; but the goods which are of life it applies to itself, and thus conjoins them with itself, and from them forms for itself truths. From this it is evident how the rational disposes the natural, in order that it may serve it as the soul or what is the same, may serve the end, which is the soul, to perfect itself, that it may be of use in the Lord’s kingdom.