4298. En Jakob noemde de naam van de plaats Peniël; dat dit de staat van de verzoekingen betekent, staat vast uit de samenhang; oudtijds werden aan plaatsen waar iets bijzonders voorviel, namen gegeven en deze namen waren tekenend voor de zaak die daar voorviel en voor de staat ervan, nrs. 340, 2643, 3422; aan deze plaats werd een naam gegeven die de staat van de verzoekingen betekende, want de staat van de verzoekingen wordt hier beschreven door de worsteling en het kampen van Jakob; Peniël betekent in de oorspronkelijke taal ‘de aangezichten van God’ ; dat ‘de aangezichten van God’ zien, wil zeggen, de zwaarste verzoekingen doorstaan, zal in wat volgt worden ontvouwd.

1110. People who have assumed that righteousness and merit lay in their good works and so have attributed the power of achieving salvation to themselves, not to the Lord and to His righteousness and merit, and who in thought and life have confirmed themselves in this idea, have their assumptions converted in the next life into delusions in which they seem to themselves to be cutting wood. This is exactly how it appears to them. I have spoken to them. When they are doing their work and are asked whether they are not tired out, they reply that they have not yet done enough work to be able to merit heaven. While they are cutting pieces of wood it seems as though something of the Lord is underneath the wood, so that the wood appears as merit. And the more something of the Lord seems to be in the pieces of wood the longer they remain in that condition. But when this delusion starts to fade they are getting nearer the end of vastation. At length they become such that they too are able to be admitted into good communities, though they still waver for a long time between truth and falsity. Because they have led a conscientious life the Lord takes great care of them, and is sending angels to them time and again. These are the people who in the Jewish Church were represented by 'hewers of wood', Joshua 9:23, 27.