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Genesis第49章

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1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days.

2 Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; And hearken unto Israel your father.

3 Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength; The pre-eminence of dignity, and the pre-eminence of power.

4 Boiling over as water, thou shalt not have the pre-eminence; Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; Weapons of violence are their swords.

6 O my soul, come not thou into their council; Unto their assembly, my glory, be not thou united; For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hocked an ox.

7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; And their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.

8 Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise: Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; Thy father's sons shall bow down before thee.

9 Judah is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up: He stooped down, he couched as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?

10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh come: And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be.

11 Binding his foal unto the vine, And his ass's colt unto the choice vine; He hath washed his garments in wine, And his vesture in the blood of grapes:

12 His eyes shall be red with wine, And his teeth white with milk.

13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; And he shall be for a haven of ships; And his border shall be upon Sidon.

14 Issachar is a strong ass, Couching down between the sheepfolds:

15 And he saw a resting-place that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And became a servant under taskwork.

16 Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel.

17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way, An adder in the path, That biteth the horse's heels, So that his rider falleth backward.

18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah.

19 Gad, a troop shall press upon him; But he shall press upon their heel.

20 Out of the Asher his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield royal dainties.

21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: He giveth goodly words.

22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a fountain; His branches run over the wall.

23 The archers have sorely grieved him, And shot at him, and persecute him:

24 But his bow abode in strength, And the arms of his hands were made strong, By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, (From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel),

25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, With blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.

26 The blessings of thy father Have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

27 Benjamin is a wolf that raveneth: In the morning she shall devour the prey, And at even he shall divide the spoil.

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

30 in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.

31 there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah:

32 the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of Heth.

33 And when Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#6463

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6463. 'And he gathered up his feet towards the bed' means that [spiritual good] turned itself - its lower things in which interior ones are present - towards the good and truth of the lower natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'gathering up the feet' as turning oneself towards lower things (when 'the feet' means lower things, 'gathering up' clearly means turning oneself towards; for 'the feet' are the things which compose the natural, see 2162, 3147, 3761, 3986, 4280, 4938-4952, thus which are lower ones, 6436. The fact that lower things in which interior ones are present are meant is evident from what was stated above in 6451); and from the meaning of 'the bed' as the natural, dealt with in 6188, 6226, thus the good and truth of the natural since these make up a person's natural. The reason why the good and truth of the lower natural are meant is that this part of the natural, in accordance with the explanations given in 6451, 6452, is what interior things turn themselves towards. For the natural has a lower part and a higher one, or an interior part and an exterior one, see 3293, 3294, 5118, 5126, 5497, 5649.

[2] Since 'Israel' represents spiritual good from the natural, and 'Jacob' spiritual truth in the natural, while 'his sons' represent forms of good and truths in the natural, divided into separate groups, the word bed is therefore used; for the natural is meant by it, 6188, 6226, as for example when it says here that, after he had finished speaking to his sons, he gathered up his feet towards the bed. Other examples of the usage occur where it says that, when Joseph came to him, Israel strengthened himself and sat on the bed, 6226, and also where it says that, after he had spoken to Joseph about burying him in the grave of his fathers, Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed, 6188. This also accounts for the following remarkable occurrence: When one thinks of Jacob a bed with a man lying on it is seen in the world of spirits. It is seen some distance away overhead, in front over on the right. The reason for its appearance is that an idea of Jacob in the mind is converted in heaven into an idea of the natural; for in heaven they do not perceive anything of Jacob but perceive that which is represented by him, namely the natural, which is also meant by 'the bed'.

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