Arcana Coelestia # 4290
4290. In the internal historical sense 'he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me' means that they insisted on being representative, for being insistent is meant by 'I will not let you' and the representative of the Church by 'being blessed'. This particular matter - the insistence of Jacob's descendants that they should be representative of the Church, though they were no more the elect than any other nation - is not very clear, it is true, from the historical narratives of the Word contained in the sense of the letter. It is not clear because those narratives hold the arcana of heaven within them, which accordingly follow one another in a connected sequence, and also because the actual names there are used to mean spiritual realities, many of which names indeed are used in the highest sense to mean the Lord. Examples of these are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who mean in the highest sense the Lord, as has been shown many times in what has gone before; see also 1965, 1989, 2011, 3245, 3305 (end), 3439.
[2] The fact that Jacob's descendants were not the elect, yet they insisted that the Church should have its existence among themselves, may be seen from the internal historical sense in many places in the Word, openly so in the following statements in Moses,
Jehovah said to Moses, Go up from here, you and the people which you made to go up out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it. I will not go up in your midst, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way. When the people heard this bad news, 1 they mourned and took off every one his ornament from upon him. And Moses took a tent and pitched it for himself outside the camp, far away from the camp. Moses said to Jehovah, See, You say to me, Make this people go up, when You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Now therefore, if, I pray, I have found favour in Your eyes, make known to me, I pray, Your ways, so that I may know of You, that I have found favour in Your eyes. See also that this nation is Your people. He said therefore, My presence will go [with you], until I give you rest. Exodus 33:1, 3-4, 7, 12-14.
In this chapter of Exodus it is said that Moses made the people go up out of Egypt and then that they took off their ornaments and mourned, and that Moses pitched the tent outside the camp and that Jehovah gave His assent. This shows plainly that they themselves were insistent.
[3] In the same author,
Jehovah said to Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will they not believe, for all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will strike them down with pestilence and annihilate them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are. But Moses entreated Jehovah, who being appeased said, I will be gracious according to your word. But yet, I am the living One, and all the earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah; for as for all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the desert, and despite this have tempted Me these ten times and have not obeyed My voice, they will not see the land which I swore to their fathers; all who provoke Me will not see it. In this desert will your bodies fall, but I will bring in your children. Numbers 14[11-13, 20-23, 29, 31].
From these verses also it is evident that Jehovah was willing to annihilate them and therefore not to establish the Church among them, but that they insisted it should be established among them, and therefore it was done. And there were many other occasions besides this when Jehovah would have wiped out that repeatedly rebellious nation but repeatedly He allowed Himself to be appeased by their entreaties.
[4] The same is also implied by the fact that Balaam was not allowed to curse that people, in 22 Chapters, 24 of Numbers; in addition to other places where it is said that Jehovah repented of having brought that people in; also that Jehovah was appeased, as well as that He repeatedly made a new covenant with them. These are the kinds of things that are meant in the internal historical sense by the words 'I will not let you go unless you bless me'. Something similar is also meant by Jacob's taking the birthright from Esau as well as taking the blessing by deceit from him, in Chapters 25, 27 of Genesis.
Сноски:
1. literally, evil word
Genesis 26
1
There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
2
Yahweh appeared to him, and said, "Don't go down into Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about.
3
Live in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For to you, and to your seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.
4
I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and will give to your seed all these lands. In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed,
5
because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my requirements, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."
7
The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife," lest, he thought, "the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at."
8
It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife.
9
Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
10
Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"
11
Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."
12
Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him.
13
The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great.
14
He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The Philistines envied him.
15
Now all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth.
16
Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go from us, for you are much mightier than we."
17
Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.
18
Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them.
19
Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.
20
The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." He called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.
21
They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. He called its name Sitnah.
22
He left that place, and dug another well. They didn't argue over that one. He called it Rehoboth. He said, "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land."
23
He went up from there to Beersheba.
24
Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham's sake."
25
He built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. There Isaac's servants dug a well.
26
Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his army.
27
Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?"
28
They said, "We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,
29
that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.' You are now the blessed of Yahweh."
30
He made them a feast, and they ate and drank.
31
They rose up some time in the morning, and swore one to another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.
32
It happened the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water."
33
He called it Shibah. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
34
When Esau was forty years old, he took as wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.
