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Genesis第33章

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

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

3 And he himself passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

4 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on 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 with thee? And he said, The children whom God hath graciously given thy servant.

6 Then the handmaids came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves.

7 And Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves.

8 And he said, What meanest thou by all this company which I met? And he said, To find favor in the sight of my lord.

9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let that which thou hast be thine.

10 And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found favor in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand; forasmuch as I have seen thy face, as one seeth the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me.

11 Take, I pray thee, my gift that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. And he urged him, and he took it.

12 And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee.

13 And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young: and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die.

14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.

15 And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find favor in the sight of my lord.

16 So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir.

17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him a house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.

18 And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram; and encamped before the city.

19 And he bought the parcel of ground, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of money.

20 And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-israel.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#4439

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4439. 'Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter' means a wrongful joining together, that is to say, a wrongful joining to the affection for truth which the external Church represented here by 'Jacob' possessed. This is clear from the meaning of 'defiling' as a wrongful joining together, for by 'marriages' is meant a rightful joining together, 4434, and therefore by the defilement of them a wrongful one, concerning which see 4433; from the representation of 'Dinah' as the affection for all things of faith, also the Church arising from that affection, dealt with in 4427; and from the representation of 'Jacob', who at this point is the external Ancient Church. The reason why Jacob' at this point means the external Ancient Church is that such a Church was to have been established among his descendants, and would in fact have been. established if those descendants had received the interior truths which existed among the Ancients. Jacob's representation of that Church at this point is also evident from the train of thought in this chapter, for he had no part in his sons' plan to smite the city and kill Hamor and Shechem, a deed which was also the reason for his telling Simeon and Levi,

You have brought trouble on me, by making me stink to the inhabitant of the land. Verse 30; and in the prophetical utterance he made before his death,

Into their secret place let my soul not come; in their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox. Genesis 49:6.

And there are very many other places in the Word besides these in which 'Jacob' represents the external Ancient Church, 422, 4286. The reason why 'Jacob' represents that Church is that in the highest sense he represents the Lord's Divine Natural, to which the external Church corresponds. His sons however mean his descendants who annihilated truth known to the Ancients as this existed among themselves, and in so doing destroyed that which was to constitute the Church, so that only that which was the representative of it remained with them, 4281, 4288, 4289, 4303.

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