1. WHEN reason reads this history of the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis it has a twofold conjecture upon the same: one is as if Rebecca [only] loved Jacob more than Esau, and therefore brought him by craft to obtain the blessing of his father; and again it conceives, that indeed it was from the appointment and providence of God, because Esau was not worthy of the blessing, and therefore it will take upon it wholly to condemn Esau, whereupon also it has set the predestination; and yet it understands nothing at all of this wonderful figure.n7424 ¶1
2. Now, if we would rightly understand and interpret this figure, then we must set here in the figure the patriarch Isaac, in God the Father's stead, who alone can bless, who also blessed Isaac in Abraham's seed, that Isaac should again bless his seed in the Covenant's line.n7424 ¶2
3. And Esau was set in the place of the depraved nature, viz. in the kingdom of the corrupt nature in man's property, apprehended in the anger of God.n7424 ¶3
4. And Jacob we set in the new birth, in the humanity of Christ, which God the Father blessed instead of the depraved Adam, when he brought forth a new generation out of our humanity in this line.n7424 ¶4
5. And we see here how Adam has fooled away and lost the blessing and divine unction, and how he was rejected in the earthly image, from God; and how he has lost his right of the divine unction; as here Esau [had lost] the first birth, and also the blessing.n7424 ¶5
The inward spiritual figure stands thus:n7424 ¶6
6. Isaac was old, and expected to die, and called Esau his first-born son, that he might bless him with the blessing of Abraham, and bade him go take some venison, and dress it for him, that he might eat gladly thereof, that his soul might be refreshed, and the blessing of the Lord might put forth itself in him, that he might bless Esau. And Esau went and did as his father would have him, that so he might he blessed (Gen. xxvii. 1-4). This, in the inward understanding in the figure, is thus:n7424 ¶7
7. When Isaac was ready to die, the blessing in God the Father's property moved itself in him, and would bless the natural seed of the Adamical nature, viz. the kingdom of nature, in Esau: for Isaac longed after venison, viz. after the kingdom of nature in the bestial property, viz. after the depraved Adamical man, as to the first creation.n7424 ¶8
8. For the Father's blessing would cast itself upon Adam, in whose stead Esau stood; but the heavenly ens was extinct in the first Adam, and therefore the natural man might not be helped and remedied only with a blessing; but there must be another serious earnestness: the blessing must become a substance, viz. man, in the kingdom of nature; of which [substantial blessing] the kingdom of nature was not capable, in its own power and might: as here Esau, in his kingdom of nature, was not capable of the Father's blessing.n7424 ¶9
9. For the kingdom of man's nature was so poisoned that it must be dissolved; therefore the blessing of God the Father turned itself upon the woman's tincture, viz. upon the Adamical female tincture, understand, the light's tincture. For the fiery tincture in Adam was awakened in the wrath, viz. in the kingdom of darkness, and was made an earthly image; and herein the heavenly was swallowed up and mortified. Now, the blessing would come to help this heavenly disappeared image, that so it might be quickened again in the blessing; and so the kingdom of nature with which it was incorporated should be blessed, tinctured and regenerated.n7424 ¶10
10. Seeing then two lines went forth in Abraham's and Isaac's seed, viz. in Ishmael and Esau, the right depraved Adamical image, and in Isaac and Jacob the line of the Covenant in the free given grace, the blessing of God the Father, which was manifested in Isaac, turned itself upon Jacob, viz. upon the line of Christ whom God has anointed; that he should again anoint the first-born Esau, viz. the first Adamical depraved man; for the first Adam had lost his first birth given him out of the divine Word in the creation, and could not any more be blessed out of his centre.n7424 ¶11
11. For the soul's will was broken off from the eternal Word of divine holiness, and had given itself into the centre of the first Principle, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the severation of the speaking word, viz. into the opposition and contentious contrariety. Whence also Isaac blessed Esau with the word of strife, when he said unto him in the blessing, you shall live by your sword, and break your brother's yoke from off your neck. Signifying, that now the depraved nature in him was become a servant of God's anger, and should now bear and manage the combat which Adam had raised up in the life's properties, and be a servant of the same.n7424 ¶12
12. But that Isaac did not understand this thing, and would have blessed Esau with the blessing of the Covenant, and given him the sceptre in Zion, does show unto us that Isaac, and all the holy children of God (although they be born again of the new birth in the line of the Covenant and stand therein), do not apprehend and understand the internal ground of their essence, wherein the kingdom of God works and is in power, so as to be able to do anything thereby in self-will. But God turns this internal ground of the place of God as he pleases; and the soul must see to what he [God] does; as here Isaac must see to what the Lord had blessed by him.n7424 ¶13
13. For Isaac said to Esau, That he should make him ready savoury meat, such as he loved to eat; and then his soul would bless him (v. 4). But now this blessing stood in the line of the Covenant, in which, Christ should spring forth; not in the soul's might, but in God's might. For the soul of Isaac and of all the children of Adam were as yet, with the soul's root, on the band of God's anger, which anger this internal incorporated line of grace should destroy in Christ's death, and wholly incorporate and unite it into the line of the Covenant.n7424 ¶14
14. Therefore the soul's will in Isaac should not propagate the blessing of this Covenant's line, and give it to the kingdom of the soul-like 1 nature, viz. to the first-born, Esau, and first Adam; for the soul was a cause of the destruction: the fire's tincture received not the might and strength of the new virtue, for its might should be broken, viz. its proud Lucifer, who likewise is the very same; but the light's tincture (which disappeared in Adam when the fire's might introduced dark earthliness thereinto), which tincture sprang forth again afresh in this Covenant's line in the power of the inspoken and promised, incorporated Word of grace, the same had the might and power of the blessing.n7424 ¶15
1 Or soul's.n7424 ¶16
15. The seed of the woman, viz. the light's tincture and virtue, should bruise the head of the fiery Serpent, and change the soul's fiery might into a meek love-fire. The fiery soul's will shall and must be wholly transmuted and turned into meekness.n7424 ¶17
16. As this disappeared light's tincture was brought from Adam into the woman, viz. into Eve, which when it was in Adam was his fair Paradisical rose-garden of peculiar love, wherein God was manifest, and seeing now the figure of the new birth was represented in Isaac's blessing, therefore also his wife, viz. the blessed Rebecca, must come, as one who also stood in the line of the Covenant; and set forth the right figure of Christ, viz. Jacob, in the place of the blessing. To signify that Christ should be manifested in this Covenant's line in the seed of the woman, viz. in the tincture of the light and the water, and assume the soul's nature from the power of the light, that so he might rule over the fiery nature of the soul, and change the same into the power of the light.n7424 ¶18
17. Now Rebecca, Isaac's wife, was here in this place a figure of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ, viz. the blessed of God, who should bless Esau, and all the Adamical children. And it was so ordered by the Lord that Rebecca should so carry it, for she understood that the blessing, viz. the sceptre of Israel did rest in Jacob.n7424 ¶19
18. For seeing the sceptre in Zion lay in the seed of the woman, viz. in the virginity, the same sceptre was here also stirred in the seed of the woman; so that a woman must bring forth the Covenant's line to the place of God the Father's blessing, which was in Isaac; and the man's will, viz. the soul's natural fire-will, must come behind, and be a servant of God's wonders, and see what God has done withn7424 ¶20
19. But that it appears to be as a deceit or cunning subtlety, in that Rebecca did so instruct and put on Jacob to take away the blessing from Esau, as if she loved Jacob far above Esau, therein reason has blind eyes: for through the devil's cunning the curse came into the world; and through the divine cunning in the love the destruction of death and hell came again into the soul: the divine cunning killed the devil's cunning.n7424 ¶21
20. Understand it aright: All cunning arises from the lubet or desire. The devil's cunning arose from the false lubet or lust: so likewise God's lubet came again into the woman's seed (into which heavenly matrix the devil had insinuated his lust), and destroyed the devil's lust.n7424 ¶22
21. It was of God that Jacob obtained the blessing, wholly contrary to the mind and will of reason. For he stood in the figure of Christ, and Esau stood in the figure of the depraved Adam.n7424 ¶23
22. Therefore Esau was a hairy or rugged man, signifying the monstrous bestial property, which Adam had awaked in the fall, through lust. Now when Adam's lust had brought itself to substance, then the flesh became gross and bestial. Thus the bestial part swallowed up the heavenly in itself; and death was manifested in the flesh. And we see here in this figure very clearly typified how it should be.n7424 ¶24
23. Isaac would bless the bestial man in Esau, this, God would not: the divine blessing belonged to Christ. But the depraved Adam could not be capable of receiving the blessing of God, unless Christ take this rugged bestial skin [or form] which Adam had put on; as here Jacob could not be blessed unless he had on him the hairy beastlike skin.n7424 ¶25
24. God the Father set before him our misery in his Covenant in Christ in our humanity which he assumed; for Christ must enter into our humanity, and walk in our hairy form, and destroy our death of the bestial property; as it is written, He took on him our sickness;n7424 ¶26
laid on himself our grief (Isa. liii. 4; Matt. viii. 17; I Pet. ii. 24).n7424 ¶27
25. For as Isaac took hold of his son Jacob in his hairy skin, and felt whether he was his first-born son to whom the blessing belonged, so God the Father reached into the essence of his Son, Christ, and felt whether the humanity of Christ were the first image created in Adam; whence the agony seized on him in the Mount of Olivet, that he sweat bloody sweat, of which Isaiah speaks plainly, He took on him our grief.n7424 ¶28
26. And as Isaac found outwardly only Esau's skin on jacob, and inwardly heard Jacob's voice, and yet blessed him instead of Esau, as if he were Esau; so likewise God the Father found our rugged human property on Christ, and yet inwardly he heard that the voice of God sounded in him; that the divine heavenly ens was within, under his assumed humanity. Therefore also his voice did, in his Baptism in Jordan, rest upon him, when he blessed our humanity, in that he said, This is my beloved son, hear you him.n7424 ¶29
27. So likewise Isaac heard indeed the voice of Jacob uoder the hairy skin, and understood that it was not Esau; but the spirit in his blessing did yet forcibly pass upon him; for he proved in him the incorporated ground of the Covenant, viz. the line of the new humanity. For he said, The voice it Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau (v. 22). In which the spirit intimates, that in Jacob, and all the children of God in flesh and blood, there is even the first depraved bestial Adamical man, with his hairy skin, which God does not look upon; but only the divine voice, which is one spirit with God, does inhabit in the inward soulish man.n7424 ¶30
28. And then we see in this figure that our beast's skin in flesh and blood, wherewith we do so pride ourselves and make devout shows before God, is only a deceit; as Jacob in this beast's hide stood as a deceiver before his father, and would blind his father with the beast's skin. So likewise the earthly man comes in his bestial property before God, and desires God's blessing: but he may not obtain it, unless he has Jacob's, viz. Christ's, voice in him, under this beast's skin.n7424 ¶31
29. For, as Jacob was smooth and pure under this beast's skin, so must we be smooth, pure and holy in our inward ground 1 under this our beast's skin, if we will have the blessing of God to light and rest upon us. For we see very well in this figure that the blessing would not rest upon Esau, who had by nature a rugged hairy beast's skin in his essence, although he was the first-born to whom the blessing belonged by right of inheritance. For the first man was become depraved in his nature and had lost the inheritance of God. The blessing and the filial inheritance rests only upon the Second New Adam.n7424 ¶32
1 Of the heart and soul.n7424 ¶33
30. Further, this figure denotes, that the new man in Christ should take away the sceptre and might from the devil, and also from the man of sin; and in this blessing rule over him in power, as Jacob was made lord over his enemies: This figure points wholly at Christ.n7424 ¶34
31. For as Jacob took a strange form on him, and came in strange attire before his father, and desired the blessing of him, and also obtained it; so Christ, viz. the eternal Word, took on him also a strange form, viz. our humanity, and brought the same before his Father to bless it.n7424 ¶35
32. And as Isaac blessed his son Jacob with the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and with corn and wine (v. 28); even so God the Father blessed our humanity, in Christ. For our humanity was also in its original out of the limus of the earth, and was nourished and brought up by the dew of heaven, even by corn and wine; this, God blessed to the new birth, and resurrection of the dead upon the life ton7424 ¶36
33. And as Isaac set Jacob to (v. 29) be lord over his brethren of the natural property; so God has set the new birth in the blessing of Christ to be lord over the Adamical nature in flesh and blood; so that the new man, born of God's blessing, must rule over all the members of his natural body, and they must be subject to the newn7424 ¶37
34. And as Isaac set the curse between them, That whosoever should curse Jacob he should be accursed, and whosoever should bless him he should also be blessed (v. 29); so God has set the curse upon the corrupt Adamical kingdom, that whosoever should not be found in the blessing of Christ, he must be eternally in the curse of God, but whosoever should bring his mind and will into this Jacob's, viz. Christ's, blessing, he should be eternally in the blessing.n7424 ¶38
35. Further, we see in this type how it goes with the children of God; for when Isaac had blessed Jacob, then came Esau with his venison, and his father Isaac was astonished, and said, Why, who are you (vv. 30-33)? And he was dismayed at it, that he had unknowingly blessed Jacob. Which typifies how that the Adamical man understands nothing at all of God's ways; and how God does oftentimes wonderfully lead him according to the inward ground, and that although he be carried on in the way of God, yet he looks much at the outward reason, and often stumbles at external rational things, at temporal orders and goods, and suffers fear to surprise him; and would fain that the will of his reason be done: As here Isaac trembled exceeding when he saw that the will of his reason was broken.n7424 ¶39
36. And herein we acknowledge the misery and ignorance of the children of God, in that reason enters into its own dominion, and will not wholly leave itself to God, and is astonished when it goes otherwise than it has imagined to itself.n7424 ¶40
37. And then we see how God at last does break forth with his light in the understanding, and shows man his way, that he is satisfied; as he did here to Isaac, in that he said; This Jacob is blessed, and he shall also remain blessed (v. 33); for now Isaac understood God's will.n7424 ¶41
38. Further we see in this history how Esau weeps lamentably before his father for the blessing, and says to his father, Bless me also my father; have you but one blessing? have you not reserved one blessing for me? But his father said, I have made him your lord, and all his brethren I have given to him for servants, with corn and wine I have enriched him. What shall I do now unto you, my son (vv. 34-37)? This typifies out the kingdom of Christ, showing how God has made it lord over the kingdom of nature, as Christ said, All power both in heaven and upon earth is given to me of my father (Matt, xxviii. 18).n7424 ¶42
39. Furthermore it denotes, that the corrupt Adamical nature in Esau and all men cannot receive the blessing, unless they first die unto their own self -right and will: as Esau could not be blessed of his father with the holy blessing. For he was the type of the corrupt Adam according to the kingdom of nature; so likewise the earthly nature cannot be capable of the holy Spirit in its essence; of which Paul said, Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. xv. 50); unless it fall into the earth, and enter again into its first womb, as grain that is sown, and resign its nature to the first mother.n7424 ¶43
40. And then we see here how Isaac gives his son Esau a temporal blessing, and intimates to him that the natural man is led by the spirit of this world. For to Jacob he said, God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and of com and wine abundance (v. 28); but to Esau he said only, Behold! you will have a fat dwelling upon the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; you will live by your sword, and serve your brethren; and it will come to pass when you shall have the dominion, that you will break his yoke from off your neck (vv. 39,40).n7424 ¶44
41. And hereby he signifies in what dominion the outward natural man is led, driven and nourished, and what his desire and endeavour should be; namely, he would be in his mind only a robber, murderer, and an evil malicious beast, that should desire to bear down all under it with power, force and murder.n7424 ¶45
42. For Isaac does not say, Live you by your sword, but, You will do it. Namely, God's wrath in the kingdom of the corrupt nature, with the devil's will, will move you thereunto; that you will draw the fatness of the earth unto yourself, and will be ruled and driven by the stars above, and will in your natural power drive away from you the children of God, who rule in God's power. That is, when the holy Spirit in God's children does reprove them by reason of their tyranny, they then kill and slay them, and tear the sword of the Holy Ghost from off their neck, as here Isaac said, you will do it.n7424 ¶46
43. As indeed Esau soon did, and would have killed Jacob, so that Jacob in God's blessing was fain to flee from him. And here he pulled off the yoke of the holy Spirit from his neck. And this prophecy of the patriarch is a figure, how the Esauites and tyrants, viz. the fleshly brethren of the Christians, would dwell among the Christians, and be born as to their natural brotherhood of the same parents; as Esau, and Jacob [were]; and yet they would persecute them with sword and torments; and thrust them away, and yet stand themselves as [if they were the only true] Christians, and desire the blessing of God; as Esau stood and wept bitterly for the blessing, and he did not mind the kingdom of God, but that he might be a lord upon the earth over his brethren and other men; and might have riches, and fullness of the belly.n7424 ¶47
44. This Esau in his blessing is a true type of Antichrist, who draws near to God with the lips, and gives himself to an external seeming service and worship of Christ; and sets himself forth as if he did it to God, and stands and makes mighty holy shows in his hypocrisy and glistering verbalities, sets forth himself with zeal and devotion, that so he might be honoured of man; and that his god [Mammon and] Mausim may be fat, and does even mourn and lament for malice, when men will not do that for him which he will have; when he cannot get enough of the belly-blessing, according to the will of his god Mausim; and whosoever does but reprove or touch him, and speaks to him of the blessing of God, him he will slay, and cannot endure a true servant of Christ under him.n7424 ¶48
45. Reason supposes, that seeing Isaac said to Esau, You shall live by your sword, that God has commanded him so to do, and here it props up [its murdering malice and bloodthirsty villainy], but it is far otherwise. God wills not any war; but the kingdom of nature in God's anger wills it; and whosoever is born only of the kingdom of nature he lives also to the same.n7424 ¶49
46. Therefore said Isaac, you will do it; as if he should have said, You, through your anger will serve the anger of God, and will be a lord in the kingdom of nature in this world; even as the rich and wealthy ones do bring themselves into power and authority, and do it through the kingdom of nature, in the wrath.n7424 ¶50
47. And we see further, how that Esau did deadly hate his brother Jacob for the blessing's sake (v. 41), of which, notwithstanding, he was not capable, as to the kingdom of nature. To signify that the true children of Christ should for this blessing's sake be hated, persecuted and slain of the children in the kingdom of nature. And that, because the kingdom of grace shall rule over the kingdom of nature, and destroy the same at the end of days, and change it into its might; and therefore there is strife between both kingdoms.n7424 ¶51
48. For the children of Christ in this lifetime, as to the outward man, live in the kingdom of the depraved human nature, viz. in the kingdom of the Esauites, and are, as to the spirit, only strangers and pilgrims therein. As Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world; and therefore the children of this world are enemies to them, and persecute them, as Esau his brother Jacob.n7424 ¶52
49. For where the kingdom of Christ begins to flourish, there presently the kingdom of the devil begins to storm and rage; and therefore, because the kingdom of Christ shall and will take away and ruin his might and princely throne; hence is the strife in this world between the children of Jacob, and Esau.n7424 ¶53
50. For as soon as Jacob had obtained the blessing, Esau purposed in his mind to kill Jacob (v. 41). Which is a figure of Christ, showing how that God's anger would kill him in this blessing, in our assumed humanity, as to the kingdom of nature; and that the children of God also should be killed in God's anger, as to the kingdom of nature, and shed their blood into this murdering spirit; that thereby God's anger might be blotted out and changed into love.n7424 ¶54
The Fifty-Sixth Chaptern7424 ¶55
How Isaac and Rebecca sent away Jacob because of Esau into another Country; and how the Lord appeared to him in a Vision upon the Ladder, which reached even into heaven; and how Esau carried himself afterwards towards his Parents: What we are to understand by this figuren7424 ¶56
1. WHEN Jacob had received the blessing, 1 then he must depart from his native home, from father and mother, and flee from the wrath of Esau. This is now a figure of Christ, showing how that he, after that he had assumed and anointed our humanity, should flee with our humanity out of its father's Adamical house again into the first Paradisical house.n7424 ¶57
1 Gen. xxviii.n7424 ¶58
2. And it further denotes that the children of Christ (after they have received the unction and blessing, and the new birth begins to spring forth in them, in the blessing), shall and must forthwith flee with their thoughts and mind from their father Adam's house of the depraved nature; and it shows that the devil and the world do soon hate them, and they must forthwith give themselves to the pilgrim's path of Christ, and live under the world's slavish yoke, in misery and oppression; in disfavour and disrespect. For God brings them forth with their thoughts and mind out of their father's house, viz. out of the desire in flesh and blood; so that they do nothing at all regard the pleasure of the world, and flee from it, as Jacob from his father's house.n7424 ¶59
3. And then we see how wonderfully God guides his children, and defends them from their enemies, that the devil in God's anger cannot kill them, unless it be God's will. As he defended Jacob from the fury of Esau, and led him away from him. And we have here an excellent example in Jacob; in that he forsook his native home, also father and mother, for this blessing's sake, and loved God more than all temporal goods, and willingly left all to Esau; that so he might but be the blessed of God.n7424 ¶60
4. And we see that when he had left the riches of the world in his father's house, the Lord appeared to him with the eternal goods, and showed him a ladder, whereupon he could ascend into God's eternal kingdom: which ladder was no other than Christ, whom he had put on in the line of the Covenant. And here now the type was represented to him, showing him what person Christ should be.n7424 ¶61
5. For this ladder (as to his apprehension) was upon the earth, and the top of it reached into heaven; and thereon the angels of God did ascend and descend (Gen. xxviii. 12). Which signifies that God's eternal Word, with the power of heaven, viz. with the angelical divine world's essence, should descend or immerse itself into our essence, [which was] departed from God, and blind as to God; and assume our humanity; and so unite the heaven with the world in man; that the humanity, through this entrance of the Deity into the humanity, might have a ladder unto God.n7424 ¶62
6. And it shows that mankind should come through Christ's humanity into the society of the angels (Matt. xxii. 30). And this is clearly signified here, in that the angels of God do ascend and descend on this ladder. Also that the heaven in man should be again opened through this entrance of the divine essence into the humanity, and that the children of God should have the angels for companions in this world; which God showed to Jacob, in that the angels came up and down to him on this ladder (John i, 51).n7424 ¶63
7. Which shall be a very great comfort to the children of God, who turn themselves from their father's house, viz. from this world's vanity, to this Jacob's ladder; for they shall certainly know that God's angels do come unto them upon this ladder to which they have turned themselves, and are willingly about them [to serve them].n7424 ¶64
8. For this ladder signifies properly the pilgrim's path of Christ through this world into God's kingdom) in that the kingdom of the corrupt Adamical nature does always yet cleave unto the children of God, and hinders them in flesh and blood in the spirit of this world; and therefore they must, according to the inward man in Christ's spirit, continually ascend up in much crosses and tribulation on this ladder, and follow Christ under his cross and red banner.n7424 ¶65
9. On the contrary, the world lives in the pleasure of their father Adam's house, in scorn, jeering and mocking, in envy, spite and malice; whatsoever they can do to cross and vex these Jacob's children, that they joy and take delight in, and laugh and fleer at them. As we have an example of it in Esau; how that he took, in contempt, disdain, and spite to his father and mother, Ishmaelitish wives, who were of the line of mockery or reviling, which were mere bitterness of spirit, and griefofheart, both to Isaac and Rebecca.n7424 ¶66
10. Where we clearly see that the devil has his power in the kingdom of this world in the corrupt human property, and does continually resist God's children, and vexes and plagues them, and fights with them for his kingdom, which he has lost, and does not willingly beteem it them.n7424 ¶67
11. And we see very finely how the Lord stands above upon this ladder of the pilgrimage of Christ, as with Jacob; and without ceasing calls the children of Christ, and comforts them, that they should cheerfully ascend upon it. He will not leave them, but come to them and bless them, so that their seed and fruit shall grow, increase, and be as the dust upon the earth (Gen. xxviii. 14). That is, that they in their toil, labour and anxiety, shall spring up and flourish in the inward divine kingdom.n7424 ¶68
12. For, so much as the children of Christ go out from this world, and forsake it in their mind, so much they spring up in the inward kingdom of Christ; where then God stands above upon this ladder, and continually inspires or inspeaks his blessing and power into them, so that they grow as branches on his vine (John xv. 5), which he has planted (Ps. lxxx. 15) again in our humanity, in this Jacob's blessing, in Christ.n7424 ¶69
13. And we hereby clearly see that this whole type, from Abraham to Jacob, contains mere figures of the kingdom and person of Christ and his children. For here God renews the promised Covenant of Abraham concerning the seed of the woman, with Jacob also; that out of his seed (v. 14), as out of the line of the Covenant, He should come who should bless all nations. For which cause also Jacob was led from his father's house, God having set before him outwardly the kingdom of Christ in the figure; for whose sake he caused his wrath to cease from the children of unbelief and did not destroy them, but afforded them time to repent; and so appeased his wrath in this type, which pointed at the fulfilling which was to come.n7424 ¶70
14. We have here also a firm ground and assurance that Christ has truly taken upon him our Adamical soul and humanity in the body of Mary, and has destroyed death, hell, and the anger of God in our humanity which he assumed, and has set up this ladder of Jacob. For God said to Jacob, Through you and your seed shall all the generations of the earth be blessed (v. 14). Through you, Jacob, through your own seed, which is God and man, viz. the heavenly divine ens and substance, and the human ens and substance, in the power of the eternal Word.n7424 ¶71
15. In which Word the holy name Jesus, viz. the highest love of the Deity, has unfolded and manifested itself in our humanity which he has assumed; which sole love of God, in the name Jesus, has overcome the wrath of the eternal nature in our souls [which is] from the Father's property in the anger; and has changed it into the love of the divine joy; and has broken the still death, which has severed us from the life of God; and has manifested the divine life of the highest holy tincture in the eternal speaking Word of the divine power, in death, and has made death to be life; and so our soul, in this divine power, is together penetrated and pressed through death and the anger of God.n7424 ¶72
16. And it is in no wise to be so taken, as some say, that the substance wherein the Word is become man, proceeded not from Adam;n7424 ¶73
but, as some erroneously say, the Virgin Mary proceeded not from mankind, she has outwardly only taken upon her a human body from Anna, and is not of the seed of Jacob, but is an eternal virgin chosen by God for this purpose before the world was.n7424 ¶74
17. This text teaches us otherwise, where God says, Through you, and your seed. Not through a strange divine seed only, but through you and your seed, with the entrance of the divine substance. Christ should break death in Adam's soul and body, and destroy hell in Adam's soul and body, which was manifested or revealed in Paradise.n7424 ¶75
18. For here lay our sickness and misery, which Christ took upon him as a yoke. Christ sacrificed his Father's wrath, which was kindled in our humanity, and awakened his highest love in our human and his holy blood. His holy tincture entered into our human death, and tinctured our (in Adam) faded heavenly substantiality (which faded in Adam when he brought earthliness and the false will thereinto), and raised up our faded heavenly substance with his heavenly living substance, so that life sprang up through death: And this was signified by the dry rod of Aaron.n7424 ¶76
19. Therefore that is not the true meaning, as some say: Christ has assumed a soul from the Word in the eternal Virgin Mary, so that Christ, as one come from God, and his soul in the humanity of Christ, has one and the same beginning.n7424 ¶77
20. They were indeed united in the incarnation or the becoming man, so that they are inseparable, but the true ens of the soul, which the Word assumed in the name Jesus, was of us men from the female tincture, viz. from the true Adamical soul, yet from the property of the light, which was severed from Adam [and put into the woman], that this property of the light might transmute or change the fiery masculine property again into the love and divine humility, and that the masculine and feminine property might be quite changed into one image again; as Adam was before his Eve, when he was neither man nor woman, but a masculine virgin.n7424 ¶78
21. Therefore Christ took his soul from a woman, viz. from a virgin, and yet was a man, so that he rightly stood in the Adamical image, and brought the averted severed properties of life, in which our will had broken itself off from God, again into the temperature and union, viz. into that ONE.n7424 ¶79
22. For Adam turned his will from the only will of God, and Jesus Christ took our soul again into the only will of God, and turned the will of our soul, in our humanity which he assumed, into the only will of God again.n7424 ¶80
23. But that the reader may be thoroughly and fundamentally informed what our soul, and what the Word that became man, is, compare one with the other. It is thus: Our soul, before the beginning of the human soul's 1 creature, was an ens of the Word of God, in the Word (John i), and yet it was inspired or inspoken from the speaking Word of God into the human image in a natural and creaturely life, and formed in an image of the eternal speaking Word. This creaturely life of the soul turned itself in Adam away from the divine speaking, into an own will and speaking, and was in this respect broken off from the most unsearchable substance, and separated from God.n7424 ¶81
1 Soulish.n7424 ¶82
24. Into this separated word, viz. into the soul, the only eternal divine speaking Word gave itself in again, and turned the will of the soul again into the eternal One, viz. into God's eternal speaking. Therefore the soul is indeed from the eternal Word; but Christ, viz. the highest love of the Deity, did not take a new soul out of the eternal speaking, but [he took] our soul, viz. the word which was once spoken or formed in Adam, viz. our human soul, into his lovespeaking in the grace and union of the Deity.n7424 ¶83
25. God spoke again, into our poor fallen soul in Paradise, immediately after the fall, the Covenant and root of his highest love and grace, through the Word, as a centre of grace to conception, and to the new regeneration.n7424 ¶84
26. And in Abraham he manifested the Covenant, which Abraham laid hold on with his desire, and received it after a spiritual manner, as an ens to the tree, but it lay without substance in man, only as a spiritual form and model or idea of the powerful Word.n7424 ¶85
27. Which Word, in its spiritual figure in the Virgin Mary, was at the limit, viz. at the end of the spiritual form, where that same spiritual form of the Word of God was comprehended in a substantial ens; and therewith also in like manner our human substance as to the soul was comprised in the image of the Word, and as to the substance of the body in a human form; 1 and was a self-subsisting God-man.n7424 ¶86
28. This comprised spiritual image, which was the seed of faith which Abraham laid hold on in the faith, was invested on Isaac, and from Isaac on Jacob; and to Jacob God said, Through you and your seed shall all the people of the earth be blessed (v. 14); viz. through this seed of faith which Jacob had received from his father Isaac in this line of the Covenant; which line of faith had incorporated itself in the human property according to the inward ground of the second Principle, viz. in that image of the heavenly world's substance which was extinguished in Adam.n7424 ¶87
29. In which incorporated ground the limit of God's Covenant remained, in a spiritual form till Mary, and was propagated from man to man, as from Adam and Eve along to Mary; and there the Word of the divine power was moved, and essentially assumed our human flesh and blood, together with the soul, and quickened the extinguished heavenly ens in the seed of Mary as to our part; which manifestation penetrated and pressed also into Mary's heavenly substantiality, so that she became living as to that heavenly virginity which disappeared in Eve: and in this living virginity, viz. in Adam's heavenly matrix, God became man.n7424 ¶88
30. And this is the blessing of Mary above all other women (Luke i. 42), that she is the first from Adam in whom the heavenly matrix became opened, in which the dry rod of Aaron rightly budded, viz. the kingdom of God. She is the first in whom the hidden virtue was manifested, for in her the limit of the Covenant in the spiritual image or type was at an end; and in her it was fulfilled with 2 our humanity.n7424 ¶89
1 Frame, or formation, building. 2 In, or by.n7424 ¶90
31. Nevertheless she is truly the daughter of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, both as to the humanity and as to the Covenant of the spiritual figure; and in her conception, when the inward incorporated image or type of the inspired or inspoken Covenant of grace, which was laid hold on in the faith, did assume our human property, then was the kingdom of Christ manifested in the flesh.n7424 ¶91
32. Wherein afterwards the faithful put on Christ in the flesh, in their faith, yet only as to that heavenly image which was extinguished in Adam, as Mary [did], where Christ embraces the poor souls in his arms, and encompasses them with the power of God, and infuses and flows in with his love into them; which love preserves and defends them from the anger of God, from sin, death, the devil, and hell.n7424 ¶92
33. This is a brief summary of the true ground, what the spirit of God has prefigured and typified by the patriarchs, in that he has led them so wonderfully, and has thus alluded with the figure of Christ how it would come to pass afterwards.n7424 ¶93
34. For Jacob was now the stock, out of which the great and wide tree of Israel should spread abroad in the dividing of its branches, as a genealogy; therefore must he go away from his father's house, and take wives of his father's genealogy, viz. of Abraham's brother's son, that the people Israel, viz. the line of the Covenant, might come of one stock.n7424 ¶94
35. Now, when Jacob awaked from the dream of the divine vision, where the Lord appeared to him and established the Covenant, he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How holy is this place! here is no other than the house of God, here is the gate of heaven (Gen. xxviii. 16, 17). This is a figure, showing how it would go with God's children, when God was manifest in them, that they continue to be in fear and trembling, and suppose God is afar off and has forsaken them.n7424 ¶95
36. For where God withdraws himself in man, there will always sin and the anger of God be first manifested in that man, so that he will acknowledge and tremble at his sin, and enter into repentance; then appears to him God's friendly countenance and comforts him. For if the soul goes forth from sin, then God's grace enters into it; and then it says, Surely the Lord was with me in my anxiety, and I knew it not; now I see that the Lord is with the troubled heart, which is troubled in a divine zeal or jealousy, There is the place of God, and the gate of heaven.n7424 ¶96
37. Further it signifies, how the highest love of God in this Covenant in Christ would be immersed into our humanity; and how the humanity of Christ would be conversant in trouble, in that he took upon him all our trouble and misery; and how the humanity of Christ would be astonished before the anger of God and hell. As was in the mount of Olives, where in his agony he sweat a bloody sweat (Luke xxii. 39-44), and Christ in his humanity said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt. xxvi. 39); where instantly the gates of God appeared and comforted the humanity. As here to Jacob, when he must in trouble depart from his father's house, in fear and trembling at his brother Esau, who lay in wait to murder him. All which is a figure concerning Christ, when God's anger in our humanity did lie in wait to murder him, that he would be in an agony, heaviness and distress; and how he would pray to his Father, and how his Father would comfort him; all which was done before he was crucified,l especially in the mount of Olives, in which place this figure of Jacob was fulfilled.n7424 ¶97
38. And as Jacob took the stone which he had laid under his head, and set it up for a remembrance, and poured oil thereupon (Gen. xxviii. 18), so has Christ set up his anguish or agony for a remembrance to us poor men, and poured forth his oil of joy and victory upon it in our troubled terrified hearts; and of that same stone 2 has erected his Church for a continual remembrance; of all which this type of Jacob was a prefiguration.n7424 ¶98
39. Which Jacob signifies in plain words where he says, If God will be with me, and defend me in the way which I travel, and give me bread to eat and clothes to put on, and bring me home with peace to my father, then shall the Lord be my God: And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of all which you give unto me I will give the tenth to you (Gen. xxviii. 20-22); where he clearly under this figure signifies the Levitical, and afterwards the evangelical, priesthood, as it would be hereafter.n7424 ¶99
1 Or, his Passion.n7424 ¶100
2 Agony, and a troubled heart, because of sin.n7424 ¶101
The Fifty-Seventh Chaptern7424 ¶102
How Jacob came to Laban, and kept his sheep for him fourteen years for his two Daughters; what the Spiritual Figure of Christ's Bride contained under it signifies. How God sets Jacob in Christ's figure, and so sports with the Type of Christ 1n7424 ¶103
1. WHEN Jacob must now in sorrow go away from his parents, and so avoid his brother Esau, and commit himself to God in the blessing of him, then God brought him to his beloved bride, with whom he spent a while in joy with patience, till he returned again with great riches to his father.n7424 ¶104
2. This is first a worldly history and example,2 under which the spiritual figure of the kingdom of Christ is represented, for if the poor sinner turn to God, then he attains, first of all the blessing, viz. the Baptism of Christ, whereby the Holy Ghost baptises him in the inward ground; and then3 it sets him in the process of Christ under the banner of his cross, and bids him go forth from his father's Adamical house of sin, and make towards the path of Christ's pilgrimage.n7424 ¶105
3. And there he must lay the hard stone of reason under his head, and rest and sleep upon this stone of reason; that is, reason must stand still, and the mind must in itself turn in to the grace of God in the most inward ground in highest humility, and most willingly enter upon the pilgrimage of Christ, as Jacob here did; and then meets him his most amiable bride and beautiful Rachel, viz. the noble Virgin Sophia of the divine wedlock enjoyment 4 in the love and humanity ofn7424 ¶106
1 Gen. xxix. 2 Or, precedent. 3 Secondly. 4 Or, amorousness.n7424 ¶107
4. First he comes to the (Gen. xxix. 2) well, where the noble Sophia gives her sheep drink; that is, the soul is led to Christ's fountain, out of which the water of eternal life does spring; there he first sees and demands of the shepherds, where the noble Sophia feeds her flock. The shepherds signify the children of Christ, viz. teachers of the word of Christ, in whom the spirit of Christ is, who also feed his sheep. There the penitent man asks for his eternal kindred and friends, viz. For the Paradisical house,! wherein his grandfather Adam dwelt; then those shepherds show him that house, and also the beautiful Rachel, which is born in this house, viz. the noble Sophia.n7424 ¶108
5. Who, when the poor soul discovers these things, looks amiably upon the soul; whence the soul is kindled in great love, and rolls away the great stone from the well, and gives the sheep of noble Sophia drink (Gen. xxix. 10); that is, the soul rolls away all its earthly lusts, which were a cover upon the wellspring of eternal life, and gives drink and food to the poor needy sheep of Christ, the sheep of this noble Sophia, and kisses the noble Sophia with its burning desire to the love of Christ.n7424 ¶109
6. And when the noble Virgin Sophia sees this, and that the poor soul discovers all its perils that it has undertaken for her, then she runs to her Father, and tells him that her beloved suitor and friend is abroad with the sheep of Christ, and helps to give them drink. That is, the love of Christ presses with the poor soul's desire into God the Father, and says, This soul is my friend, my bridegroom. Then God the Father commands that he be brought into his house; as here Rachel did to Jacob, and told it to her father who Jacob was, and what his purpose was (Gen. xxix. 12). And so also Christ shows his Father what the poor, troubled, perplexed soul's purpose is, when it comes to him.n7424 ¶110
7. And as Jacob was promised this Rachel for a spouse, for which he consented to keep the sheep seven years, and loved her dearly 2 (Gen. xxix. 19, 20), and yet afterwards, at the wedding, the other sister, with her tender eyes, was laid by him, which he desired not. So it goes also with Christ's children, when they turn to God and apply themselves to be shepherds of Christ's sheep, to take care of them,3 then is the most amiable and beautiful Sophia promised and presented to them, whereat they find joy within them.n7424 ¶111
1 Or, family. 2 At his heart. 3 Or, provide for them.n7424 ¶112
8. But when it comes to pass that the soul thinks it will embrace this bride in its arms, and have perfect joy with her, then the other sister, viz. Leah, that is, the cross of Christ, is laid by it, and the beautiful Sophia hides herself and it must first take the cross of Christ for a spouse, and keep the sheep of Christ seven years more for Rachel, viz. For the noble Sophia, before he obtains her for his spouse.n7424 ¶113
9. For the humanity of Christ does not presently give itself to the fiery soul for its own; but stays indeed in the betrothingl in the inward ground, in the image of the heavenly world's substance, which disappeared in Adam. But God the Father gives the soul instead thereof, the other sister, viz. tenderness of heart, that the soul in this time may not sport in the garden of roses, but be in trouble and calamity, that it may be tried and humble, and always keep the sheep of Christ, and not in this marriage solace themselves in pleasures and pride, as Lucifer did.n7424 ¶114
10. And though it be so that this noble Rachel or Sophia be given in marriage to the soul, as is done to the stable children of Christ, so that the soul keeps this great wedding of joy with this bride (which they alone understand who have been guests at this wedding), yet afterwards the noble Sophia is as it were barren, the wedding joy passes away, and the soul is as if the love of this bride were taken from it.n7424 ¶115
11. In the meanwhile (Gen. xxix. 31 et seq.) Leah, under the cross of Christ, breaks forth and bears fruit; that is as much as to say, when the soul receives 2 the spirit of Christ, then begins the great joy of this marriage, concerning which Christ says, There is more joy in heaven for one sinner that repents, than for ninety-nine righteous that need not this repentance (Luke xv. 7).n7424 ¶116
12. For that is the wedding of the Lamb, that God and man is married, and Christ is born; and then he stands in our poor and simple form3 in our most inward ground, and hides his great sweetness, which the soul tasted in the marriage, and covers it with his cross; and then must the poor soul in the meanwhile take the tender Leah, viz. patience, and labour with her for fruit in the vineyard ofn7424 ¶117
13. And it is very well that the soul faulters with this Leah, and then this Rachel in the inward ground of the soul is a stranger, and is as a stranger towards it. As Rachel towards Jacob, when she said to him, Give me4 children, or else I die (Gen. xxx. I). So also the noble Sophia says indeed to the soul, Work [or bring forth] in my lovedesire divine fruit, or else I will depart from you; whereas yet the soul cannot do it in its own power.n7424 ¶118
1 Or, promise of marriage. 2 As a conception. 3 Condition or disposition. 4 Create.n7424 ¶119
14. But this is therefore done that the soul may the more earnestly apply itself to prayer, and pray to God for the divine working of the divine fruit. As Jacob prayed to God, so that Rachel was fruitful, and did bear unto him Joseph (Gen. xxx. 22-24), the prince of all the land of Egypt, who preserved, fed, and nourished them in the famine.n7424 ¶120
15. So also when the noble Sophia seems barren to the soul, as if it could not bring forth the power of God in the soul, and yet the soul mourns to God in patience [praying] that he would work in it and bless it; whereupon the soul often converts in very great repentance, and casts itself upon God's mercy, till this noble Sophia become stirring, fruitful, and pregnant; and so it certainly generates the true Joseph, viz. a lowly, humble, chaste, temperate and modest soul; which afterwards becomes a prince over the Egyptian house of flesh and blood. In which house the heathenish Pharaoh dwells, viz. the bestial spirit. Over that is this Joseph set for a ruler and governor, and is a ruler over reason, and governs it with Joseph's, viz. with God's, spirit.n7424 ¶121
16. This is thus, as to one part, the spiritual figure of Jacob, wherewith the spirit alludes to the future kingdom of Christ, where now at present in the fulfilling it alludes thus also in the children of Christ, and does yet so always lead them.n7424 ¶122
17. But we see especially in this figure the way of God, how God's mind is far other than man's. What man loves, in that God hides himself; for that pleases him well which in the eye of the world is simple and despised, which depends on him alone, and fearsn7424 ¶123
18. Jacob loves the beautiful Rachel, and desires her. But the line of the Covenant, in which Christ should be born, would not pass through Rachel, but Leah; also Rachel could not conceive till Leah had brought forth the root or line of the kingly priesthood and princedom,! viz. Levi and Judah.n7424 ¶124
19. for the priesthood came from Levi, and out of Judah came the sceptre of the kingdom, and the Prince Christ according to the humanity; to signify that Christ will be born and manifested in these men alone, and brings and works his priesthood of the Holy Ghost in them, who go forth from the love of themselves, and the pleasure of the flesh, and are in the eye of the world softly, bashful, simple and despised; who esteem themselves unworthy of such honour, and do not account such divine working to be their own, and pride themselves therewith, as the proud Pharisees did, and still do.n7424 ¶125
1 Principality.n7424 ¶126
20. For this Leah desires only to bear children for Jacob, that she might be acceptable to him, seeing otherwise, in respect of her bleareyedness,l she was disregarded. Thus also the true children of God desire therefore only to walk in the divine power, with teaching2 and a simple life in the ways of God, that they may please God and serven7424 ¶127
21. And again: we see here by Jacob's seed that the line of Christ would not manifest itself in his first seed with Leah, that Christ might not be manifested in human pleasure or lasciviousness of fleshly lust, for Leah first bare Reuben (who defiled the bed3 of his father) (Gen. xxix. 32), to signify that this root sprang from human lust.n7424 ¶128
22. But when Leah was discouraged, because she was despised, and would fain go out of that contempt, then she bare Simeon, who was of an acute wit,4 of whom Jacob said, when he was to die, when he prophesied concerning all his children, from what root each of them was: The brethren, Simeon and Levi, their swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come not into their counsel, and let not my honour be in their churches or assemblies (Gen. xlix. 5, 6); to signify that he was sprung from the line of zeal or jealousy, wherein Leah was jealous and discontented that she was thus disesteemed, as she then said, The Lord has heard that I was thus disesteemed, and has given me this [son] also (Gen. xxix. 33).n7424 ¶129
23. But when she cried unto the Lord in her zeal for deliverance from her disesteem, then she was pregnant, and bare Levi (Gen. xxix. 34), viz. the root of the Levitical priesthood, a type of the kingdom of Christ. For she cried to God that her husband might be again joined to her in love, as she speaks after this manner: Now will my husband be joined to me again; to signify that God, with the Levitical priesthood, in a type, would be joined again to man, and would, in a type of the kingdom of Paradise, dwell among them again, as was done in the time of Moses.n7424 ¶130
24. But the spirit of God said by Jacob, when he was about to die: Let not mine honour come in their churches or assemblies; that is, they are of murderous, Cainical minds, and serve me only in a figure, pointing at the future kingdom of Christ; but the spirit of my love and grace is not with them in their sacrifices and worship of God; which love and grace he calls his honour, which he would manifest through the line of Judah, in Christ.n7424 ¶131
1 Or, tender eyedness. 2 Instructing.n7424 ¶132
3 Marriage bed. Gen. xlix. 4.n7424 ¶133
4 A strict, severe man. Text, a sharp, piercing mind.n7424 ¶134
25. Which honour was, that he should break death in pieces, and destroy hell, and take away the throne of the devil in man. This the Holy Ghost calls his honour; and that was not in the Levitical priesthood, nor among the titulary priests in their churches. But when Leah gave up her will wholly into the will of God, and said, Now will I give thanks unto the Lord (Gen. xxix. 35), who has delivered me from the disgrace of the devil, and of the world, then she bare Judah, viz. the line of Christ.n7424 ¶135
26. So here now the spirit says, very secretly and covertly under a veil, And she left off from bearing (Gen. xxix. 35). To signify that Christ was the last, who was the end and fulfilling of the Levitical law; under which the spirit signifies that men would not find Christ in the priests' churches, laws, and ordinances of preaching. He would not dwell in their churches with his honour of victory, nor suffer himself and his honour to be tied to the houses of stone, where they exercise a hypocritical show, and have within them only murdering proud hearts, and with the murdering swords of Levi, disgrace and slay one another with words.n7424 ¶136
27. But in the souls of men, when they give thanks, and praise the Lord in great humility, as Leah did, when she bare Judah, the line of Christ; there will he dwell, and not be at all in the counsel of these priests and Levites, the titulary priests, who contrive only specious glistering ways for their honour and voluptuousness, and forget the true thanksgiving in humility, and honour and love themselves alone; and so give that honour to their feigned or supposed office, which belongs to God alone, and to the love of our neighbour in great humility.n7424 ¶137
28. We see clearly by this figure that God will not manifest himself in the fleshly love of ourselves. For Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (Gen. xxix. 30), and would have only Rachel in the beginning. But his seed must continue shut up with her, till Rachel humbled herself before God, and that Jacob prayed for her; to show also that God will not work in the love of ourselves, in that we love and honour one another according to fleshly lust, worldly honour and riches, where men flock together, associate and love one another according to their greatness, state, riches, glory, beauty, bravery and pleasure of thisn7424 ¶138
29. But the spirit of God requires humble, faithful and sincere love, where the soul is resigned up into God, and seeks not its own pleasure or self-love; but looks upon the way of God, and joins itself to the humble children, who love God and constantly give him thanks. There God manifests himself and works in them, that they bear fruit to the Lord.n7424 ¶139
30. Jacob first served seven years for Rachel, which he himself had chosen in his own love, yet she was not given to him for the first seven years' service; but Leah was, unknown to him, laid by him. Jacob desired Rachel as wages for his service: yet seeing the Covenant of the Lord lay in the line of Christ in him, therefore he first received the spiritual wages of the grace of God.n7424 ¶140
31. For Christ is the wages of God's children: As they must serve their Lord for worldly wages, so God first pays them with his Covenant of grace, and then afterwards they receive also temporal wages: As Jacob must first receive the gift of God, as God appoints it for him, though it went very ill, as to reason. Afterwards he also received the wages according to his will, for which he must serve yet seven years more.n7424 ¶141
32. Which seven years, in the inward ground in this figure, signify the seven properties of the natural life, which must be given up to the service of God, into which God gives himself for wages in a coworking power, where the seven forms of life first help the Lord to bear a spiritual figure and image or type, and to manifest the line ofn7424 ¶142
Christ. Then afterwards that same spiritual form discovers also the natural form, and bears a prince in the natural life, in whom God works, and through whom he rules the world; as is to be seen by Jacob.n7424 ¶143
33. He served seven years for Rachel, but seeing he feared God, the divine wages, viz. the line of Christ, was first given him. Afterwards God blessed also the human self-love, according to the kingdom of nature in him; so that of Rachel, whom he had taken in natural selflove, he begat a prince and wise man, even Joseph, by whom the spirit of God ruled, and made him a lord and governor.n7424 ¶144
34. And this figure presents to us that first Christ should be born in us, and so then Christ in us bears also the natural man, with understanding and wisdom, and appoints him to his service in the kingdom of nature, and also in the kingdom of grace; as he did Joseph.n7424 ¶145
The Fifty-Eighth Chaptern7424 ¶146
How Jacob served his Father-in-law 1 Twenty Years, and begat Twelve Sons and One Daughter, and how God blessed him, that he gat great Riches, and how Laban often changed his wages, and yet could not hurt him: What is to be understood thereby 2n7424 ¶147
1. WE see in this history especially, how it goes with the children of God in this world, how they must live in mere crosses and adversity, as Jacob did with his wives. For when Rachel saw that she was harren, she envied Leah, her sister (Gen. xxx. I); to signify that man's own love seeks not the honour of God, but itself; as now Rachel envied Leah because she had a name that God had blessed her, and said to Jacob, Give me children also, if not, I die.n7424 ¶148
2. Where we see how the ways of God are quite hidden to reason, although reason stands in the figure of the divine wonders, as here Rachel, which here signifies the own Adamical nature, which desires of Jacob the life's power from the blessing of God, and if it get not the same it must die. Which indeed the spirit of zeal in her desire does very well signify, according to her inward ground in the Covenant of God; but her reason understood it not, but only desired children, that she might be delivered from disgrace; but her inward ground stood hidden, and panted through the human nature to manifest itself in the human essence. Therefore the inward ground in the Covenant of grace signifies, through its own Adamical essence, that if the inward ground should not be manifested through the human essence it must then die eternally. Therefore says reason, Give me children, or else I die; which seems outwardly to be an opposition and discouragement: But the spirit of God has here its figure, under which it has its signification.n7424 ¶149
1 Stepfather. 2 Gen. xxx.n7424 ¶150
3. And then we see in both these sisters, who yet were daughters of God's Covenant in the Promise, how the poison of the Serpent, in the wrath of God in flesh and blood, so vehemently sets against the line of Christ in the Covenant, and always despises the same; and, as a proud Lucifer, elevates and puffs up the rational human ownhood of self-will, and would have the dominion.n7424 ¶151
4. As here Rachel despises her sister because she was outwardly fairer and more beautiful than Leah, in that Leah, in the sight of the world, was simple and blear-eyed, and Rachel had the spirit of the world in reason elegantly, as an ornament. And so the Adamical nature in Rachel ruled over the manifested blessing of the Covenant in Leah; to signify that the line of Christ in this world would be manifested in a mean, simple and despised form in men of such-like dispositions.n7424 ¶152
5. Which men would, by the reason, pomp and beauty of the world, be esteemed fools and blear-eyed; who in such scorn and disregard would go away and sow in tears, but in their inward ground in the line of Christ would bear, and at the end reap in joy: to signify that Christ's kingdom is not of this world (John xviii. 36); that in this world it must be thrown into God's anger and disdain, and into death. And by this throwing-in, satiate the anger of God with love and meekness, and with love spring forth through the anger and death, and bring the proud Lucifer, in the human own- will and fleshly lust, to scorn, and to naught, as an unstable life; which life cannot overpower the divine humility.n7424 ¶153
6. Which humility springs under all scorn, and also breaks through death and the anger of God, and makes death to be life, and takes from hell the victory, and changes the sting of the false Serpent's essence with sweet love. As we see here by Leah, although she was envied by her sister, as by reason, yet the line of Christ in the Covenant springs forth in her under all scorn, and makes her fruitful, and Rachel barren, till she gave her maid to her husband for a wife. Which signifies the Adamical, viz. the servile line, which in the kingdom of Christ attains the marriage of the line of Christ in the manner of a servant.n7424 ¶154
7. For Adam has negligently forfeited the line. The right of nature in the kingdom of God was lost in Adam, and attains in the manner of a servant to the marriage, as the maids of Jacob's wives did. Whereby we then see that Rachel, viz. the right self-nature, could not work or bring forth fruit till the line of servitude (under the yoke of the Adamical nature of self-love) did first become fruitful. To signify that the human nature must give itself up to be a servant under the line of Christ; if it will be married in the line of Christ, and be engrafted as an heir of God.n7424 ¶155
8. And then first springs forth the kingdom of nature in the kingdom of God, and in the blessing becomes fruitful. As Rachel was first fruitful when her maid had brought forth; to signify that Rachel also must be a handmaid to the Covenant of God and the line of Christ. And that the line of Christ in her also [must] be her Lord; so that she also attains the marriage of Christ's line in the manner of a handmaid; and that she had not the line of Christ in her in self -power by the right of nature; but as a gift bestowed of grace, that stands in another Principle.n7424 ¶156
9. And signifies under it that the line of Christ was not propagated in human self-ability, but that itself does press into their branches, and that the great or high name or stock 1 or tribe of men is not respected; but it presses as soon upon the meanest and most miserable in the world (which are but servants and handmaids), as upon the most high and noble.n7424 ¶157
10. As we have a powerful example of this in Jacob, who must be in a servile condition twenty years as a servant, till the twelve stocks of the tribes of Israel were begotten by him. To signify that a Christian must be born under the servile yoke of the corrupt, domineering, selfwilled Adamical nature; but if any should as a Christian be born of the line of Christ, then must the parent 2 be given up as a servant to God, and be in the kingdom of nature, only as a servant of God, who in his heart forsakes all temporal things, and accounts nothing his own, and in his condition and employment esteems himself but as a servant, who serves his Lord therein.n7424 ¶158
11. As Jacob, who under this service of his begat the stocks or tribes of Israel, signifies that they should be strange guests in this world, and serve God their Lord in the kingdom of nature therein, who himself would vote 3 them their wages; that they should with great riches go out of this world and enter into the kingdom of Christ, viz. into their first Adamical Paradisical native country, as Jacob in his service got his stepfather's goods, with great blessing.n7424 ¶159
1 Stock, family or genealogy. 2 Mother. 3 Promise or appoint.n7424 ¶160
The inward spiritual figure stands thus:n7424 ¶161
12. When Adam was fallen he must go forth out of Paradise, and yield up himself to be a servant under the spirit of the world in the kingdom of this world, and be subject to the stars and the four elements, and serve them in their dominion, and provide for and take care of their children, viz. the creatures of this world, as we see before our eyes.n7424 ¶162
13. But when he was to go out of Paradise, as Jacob out of his father's house, the Lord meets him, and shows him the entrance in again into Paradise, through the seed of the woman, and destroyer of the serpent; as he showed the same also to Jacob, by the ladder which reached to heaven (Gen. xxviii. 12).n7424 ¶163
14. And when Adam was gone out of Paradise, then he must submit himself to be a servant under a strange yoke, and serve the kingdom of nature in its wonders, and provide for or take care of the children of nature, which kingdom of nature in the fall became strange to him, in that it now holds him by constraint, and vexes him with heat and cold, sickness and misery, and holds him captive in itself, and uses him in its service, which before was his best friend and patron. 1n7424 ¶164
15. And as Jacob in this figure must flee to his friend, his mother's brother, and serve him whom he kept as a servant, and yet also, in respect of his daughter, as a son-in-law; so also must Adam serve under the servile yoke of his great father,2 viz. the kingdom of nature, which kingdom gave him its daughter to wife; of whom under this yoke he begat the children of God in the blessing of God, and also places his children as ministering servants in his father's house, viz.n7424 ¶165
in the kingdom of this world.n7424 ¶166
16. And as Jacob obtained great riches in the blessing of God, and acquired the goods of his master with subtlety, in that he subtly used the half-peeled, streaked sticks before the drinking troughs, where the sheep drank, upon which they conceived, and brought forth ringstraked 3 sheep, particoloured (Gen. xxx. 37 et seq.); so also when Adam was come under the servile yoke of the kingdom of nature, wherein also the envy and subtlety of the devil domineered according to the kingdom of wrath, God showed him that he should with subtlety acquire to himself the kingdom of nature, viz. the working of nature, with its wonders; and procure the power of nature for an eternal propriety, that his works, which he operates in the kingdom of nature, must follow him into his eternal native country, and be his own.n7424 ¶167
1 Text, grandfather. 2 Text, grandfather. 3 Pied or spotted.n7424 ¶168
17. Which subtlety was that which God showed him, viz. the Destroyer of the Serpent, which Adam put on in the Covenant, which put on the kingdom of nature [assumed] from us men, and with divine subtlety took away the strength and power of our lord and master, viz. of the kingdom of God's wrath, which held us captive under its yoke, and put on all human power, and took away our lord and master's own power, viz. the kingdom of nature's own power, asn7424 ¶169
Jacob took his lord and master's goods.n7424 ¶170
18. And as the spirit of God showed Jacob in the vision that the hegoats and rams that leaped upon the goats and sheep were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled (Gen. xxxi. 10): so was Adam also shown, in the spirit of the Covenant of promise, how the spirit of grace in the Covenant came upon the streaked, particoloured human nature, and blessed it, so that it became pregnant of the spirit of the Covenant.n7424 ¶171
19. Which human, streaked or particoloured nature is no other than the half-earthly, corrupt, and again in the Covenant, new-born heavenly nature. Upon this came the spirit of God as to the heavenly part, and made it fruitful, so that under the earthly yoke it drew the power of nature in the divine power into the heavenly; and so was his master's or lord's, viz. the kingdom of nature's, goods taken away, and the heavenly man in the Covenant gat them to himself with the divine wit and subtlety, and returned therewith from his lord and master, viz. the kingdom of the outward nature, again into his Father's house, viz. into Paradise, as Jacob into his father's house.n7424 ¶172
The figure is fundamentally thus:n7424 ¶173
20. In Adam the kingdom of nature lay in the temperature, that is, all properties were of equal weight. But when the will of the soul went with subtlety into the separation, then the properties were stirred up, and the temperature was broken. And then the separation was his lord and master, and held the will captive as a servant, who now must serve this master.n7424 ¶174
21. But when God spoke or inspired again his grace with the Covenant of love thereinto, then the inward, inspoken or inspired ground of grace drew the kingdom of nature with its wonders to it; and came away with the riches and self-might, and brought them again, with the inward new man, into Paradise.n7424 ¶175
22. For the riches of the natural outward mortal man, in that it brings forth the wonders of God with its exercise, does not belong to the kingdom of nature as its proper own, but to the inward spiritual new man, born of Christ ; he shall draw these wonders to him, and take them with him to be an eternal vision and contemplation of the wonders of God.n7424 ¶176
23. When the body of the outward nature falls away, then shall the works follow the new man as a treasure, which he has gotten to himself by divine wit and subtlety, and put off the evil Adamical nature's house of self-rule and dominion. As Jacob, who stood in the figure of the new spiritual man, with whom the spirit of God alludes in the prefiguration to the future kingdom of Christ. Showing how Christ would obtain all the goods of this world, and all the riches of the power and might of nature, in the formed, expressed 1 word ofn7424 ¶177
God, under his servitude, wherein he yielded himself up to be a servant of God in the kingdom of nature; and so make himself lord and master over it, and bring it with him into his eternal kingdom in our assumed humanity; and lastly manifest it at the end of the day of this world, and give it us again in our Father's first house.n7424 ¶178
24. Thus we should not at all look upon this figure in Jacob as if God had bidden Jacob to deceive his father-in-law with subtlety, and bereave him of that which was his, as if God had pleasure in the natural false subtlety of man. No, the spiritual subtlety is only represented in the figure, showing how we shall obtain, in the kingdom of Christ, the unrighteous mammon (Luke xvi. 9-11), which we have not as by a natural right, but obtain it by the divine wit. And then the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and they that use violence take it 2 by force (Matt. xi. 12), with such wit of divine science, knowledge or skill, as Jacob did in the figure of Christ's kingdom.n7424 ¶179
25. And it is shown to the Jews (who with this figure help themselves in their subtlety and earthly fraud and treachery), that this subtlety of Jacob prefigures a spiritual type, and does not at all cover their wickedness and falsehood.n7424 ¶180
26. For he that says, you shall not covet or lust after that which is your neighbour's (Exod. xx. 17), has forbidden all outward subtlety, fraud and deceit; but in the genealogies the spirit of God has thus, with the kingdom of Christ, signified and alluded in the figure at the inward ground of the new man, with an outward figure.n7424 ¶181
1 Or outspoken. 2 Tear and snatch it.n7424 ¶182
27. As with Ishmael, Abraham's first son, from whom the goods also were taken away. To signify that they belonged not to Adam in the corruption and perdition, but to Christ, as the second Adam, which he took with divine wit and subtlety from the kingdom of God's wrath in man; where he must first be subject to the wrath of God, and serve in the assumed human nature; yet so he obtained the goods, and took away all its goods: and that is it which this figure of Jacob signifies.n7424 ¶183
28. The spirit presents here a most wonderful figure, in Jacob, showing how Laban changed his wages ten times, and yet could not hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 7). To signify how it is with the children of God in this service, that under the yoke of nature they shall acquire the goods of the kingdom of nature in the divine wit in the inward new man. Thence happens such great alteration to man in his purposes, so that when he has resolved upon the course that he will take, the devil comes with his envy, and hinders him of his purpose by evil men, that it goes not forward. As Jacob, when he thought the speckled sheep and goats shall be my wages, then his master disappointed him of his wages.n7424 ¶184
29. So it is also with the children of God in their labour and travail, when they think, now they shall reap the blessing of God, now they will apply themselves to the children of God, with whom they may work and bring forth fruit, and there they will effect their good purposes,l and comprehend this work in their faith's desire, that it may follow after them (Rev. xiv. 13). Then will everywhere all his work and purposes be broken, so that it goes not according to his meaning and will: he must now trust and rely upon God alone, as Jacob did. And so no enemy can hurt him; and though it seems as if it would hurt him, and that his work should be vain, yet thus they work and bear fruit, incomprehensible to reason. And in the end that man departs with much goods out of the kingdom of this world, and returns again into his native country, as Jacob did.n7424 ¶185
30. For the Scripture says, The works of the children of God follow after their faith; they take them with them; they are the wages of their faith (Rev. xiv. 13). The faith takes Christ into itself andn7424 ¶186
Christ takes the works of faith with him; and thus a true Christian returns home again into his native country, with much goods, which he has introduced and laid up in hope with his faith's desire.n7424 ¶187
31. Which hope God fills for him in Christ with the heavenly ens, and takes also herewith his works of nature, and draws them to itself for an eternal wages, which is Christ, with the expressed 2 word, viz. the kingdom of nature, wherein lies the wonders and being of man, kept to God's Great Day of Separation, wherein every one shall reap what he has here sown (Gal. vi. 7).n7424 ¶188
1 Text, do good. 2 Or outspoken.n7424 ¶189
32. When we rightly view and consider this history, how God did begin the kingdom of Israel with a servile shepherd, and exalted him before all the potent rich men on earth, even to eternity; and consider that the twelve stocks or tribes of Israel were begotten under a servile yoke, as servants (out of which stock Christ, according to the humanity, was to be born); so we see that all highness of the world, also all art and wit of nature, is foolish in the sight of God, wherewith yet men so boast and esteem their worldly matters, doings or pomp, and their high state, for great things; and yet in the sight of God, are not by far so acceptable as an honest shepherd!n7424 ¶190
33. A shepherd, in whom the spirit of God works, is more highly esteemed before God than the wisest and most potent in self-wit, without the divine dominion. And we see very well how God erects his kingdom in simple, lowly and mean men, who are not esteemed by the world, but are accounted in the eye of the world no better than herdsmen. As Christ also chose such for his Apostles who were but poor, mean, contemptible people, by whom he manifested the kingdom of Israel in divine power.n7424 ¶191
34. Where are the learned and worldly-wise men? Again, where are the potent lords, who contemn the simple? where is their might, strength, art, and wit? They must all come, in dust and ashes, and fall down to the simplicity of such shepherds, and bow their hearts in servitude under Christ's yoke, if they will be partakers of the line of these shepherds. Yea, they must be as the maids of Jacob's wives, if they will come to this marriage.n7424 ¶192
35. For the line of Christ in the beginning was manifested in Abel, a shepherd. So also afterwards, in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and David, they were all but shepherds when the line of Christ was manifested. There is no potentate, noble, rich, learned, or high worldly-wise, has attained it; but mean people of no account, who have put their trust in God.n7424 ¶193
36. Where are now the high priests, schools, and universities, who ascribe to themselves and assume the authority and power of these Mysteries, and often tread underfoot the gifts of the Holy Ghost in such shepherds, and laugh at them, and count them fools? Are they not, all of them, Cain, Ishmael, and Esau, of the left line from the kingdom of this world's nature, in the hypocrisy of self-reason? which in the sight of God is not so acceptable as a shepherd.n7424 ¶194
1 Like unto an honest shepherd.n7424 ¶195
37. O ye poor blind men in Adam! cast your eyes down from above, and lay yourselves low under the simplicity of Christ, in the line 1 of these shepherds, and look not upon the pomp of art and loftiness, or you will be miserably deceived. If you will be capable of this line, you must not attain it from loftiness, which boasts itself in hypocrisy in this office of a [pastor or] shepherd; but in humility and mean simplicity, where the soul submits itself under Christ's yoke: there will the poor soul, blind as to God, get root in this marriage, and be capable of this line.n7424 ¶196
38. The twelve children of Jacob are even the lines, which the spirit of God, from Adam to Noah and his children, signified, which sprang from the line of the Covenant in Paradise, and pressed from Adam to Abel, and so on to the children of Noah; and there also twelve lines or stocks [or tribes] were manifested. Here the same tree opens itself again out of one stock, which was Jacob; and signifies how those lines should all be sanctified in one stock; which stock is Christ, who also chose him twelve Apostles to manifest this tree, which was grown out of the line of the Covenant.n7424 ¶197
39. And as Jacob begat these twelve sons, he begat also a daughter, Dinah by name (Gen. xxx. 21), who went out to see the daughters of the land (Gen. xxxiv. 1), and thereby lost her honour and virginity; and he begat her of Leah, in whom the line was manifested out of the stockn7424 ¶198
[or tribe] of Judah, to signify that the line of Christ at this time as yet stood hidden in the woman's tincture, and yet was manifest through the masculine, viz. the fiery tincture, till Mary, the mother of Christ. As we see in the Covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the Covenant pressed forward in their seed; we see it also in the circumcision, which was given only to the man [or male] .n7424 ¶199
40. And much more do we see in the Law on Mount Sinai, which was also given in a way of fire; to signify that men, before Christ, were led in the Father's property, which held us captive in the wrath, till his love, viz. his Son, through the wrath, manifested himself in the woman's tincture, and changed the man's and the woman's tincture into one again: therefore the line of Christ, with the Father's, sprang forth in the woman's tincture through the man's.n7424 ¶200
41. In the man's tincture it was stirring in the Covenant of faith in Abraham, and was manifest out of the man's tincture in the woman. But in the fullness 2 of time it was manifest in Mary, in the woman's tincture, viz. in the highest love; in which love Adam loved himself before his Eve [was], for God was manifest therein.n7424 ¶201
1 Or, true succession. 2 Fulfilling.n7424 ¶202
42. There we see here in Dinah a figure of Eve, for after Leah had borne six sons, she bare a daughter, which signifies the female tincture, which in her vain curiosity squandered 1 away her honour; as Eve would see and know the daughters of the world, viz. the bestial creaturely lust, and in this lust lost the Paradisical virginity.n7424 ¶203
43. Thus the spirit of God here in Dinah sets a figure of Eve near the line of the Covenant, seeing he who should seek and save the poor children of Eve should come out of the line of the Covenant.n7424 ¶204
44. For Leah did bear six sons, which signify the six properties of the natural life, and the seventh is the substance or corporeity of the six; in which spiritual substance Adam died or was extinguished as to the kingdom of God, when his will brake itself off from God. And that same seventh property of nature is now even the woman, viz. the mother wherein the other six are continually borne, which rightly signifies the Adamical Eve, when Eve was yet in an image or type inn7424 ¶205
45. The figure whereof the spirit of God represents in Dinah with Jacob, signifying how that seventh property of nature in Adam is become a whore, perfidious to God; and sets this figure near the line of Christ, [signifying] that Christ should come and change this whore, viz. the seventh property of the human life, into the virginityn7424 ¶206
46. Therefore was Christ born of a virgin, that he might sanctify the woman's tincture again, and change it into the man's tincture, that the man and the woman might again be one image of God, and no more man and woman, but masculine virgins, as Christ was.n7424 ¶207
47. In Rachel we see now the self-love of the kingdom of nature, where both tinctures, the masculine and the feminine, according to the kingdom of nature in self-love, bind themselves in conjunction; as Jacob loved Rachel according to the kingdom of nature, according to the tincture of self-love, and on the other side so did Rachel love Jacob. Therefore must these tinctures of natural self-love be so long shut up and bring forth no life, till the Lord remembered Rachel, and heard her (Gen. xxx. 22), as the text in Moses says. That is, till the Lord stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature with his blessing, then she bare a prince in the kingdom of nature, viz. Joseph, in whom we see, by his great chastity and fear of God, that the blessing of God stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature, which lay shut up in the seeds, and manifested the Covenant of grace therein.n7424 ¶208
1 Or, trifled.n7424 ¶209
48. For Christ should deliver from wrath the kingdom of nature in man; therefore also the spirit in this figure presents an image or type in Joseph, which it sets down also in the figure of Christ's humanity, how it would go in the future with Christ's humanity, which he took from us men.n7424 ¶210
49. In Leah Christ was represented according to his heavenly hidden humanity, showing how the heavenly world's substance would be hidden in our humanity under the yoke of God's anger, and how Christ must appear in a servile and contemptible form.n7424 ¶211
50. In Rachel with Joseph now the figure is represented, which shows how he would overcome, and in our human nature should be a Lord and Prince over all his enemies, who have held us poor men in flesh and blood captive; and how he would bring us forth out of the misery and famine of Adam, into a good land, and not remember how we in this world have cast him into the pit, as Joseph's brethren cast Joseph.n7424 ¶212
51. The spirit of God presents this figure in the twelve patriarchs, as a glass, to see by whom God was atoned in his anger, pointing at the future fulfilling, for the text in Moses speaks very hiddenly in this figure, and says, Now when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Let me depart and travel to my own place, and into my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go (Gen.n7424 ¶213
The inward spiritual figure is thus:n7424 ¶214
52. When the blessing of Jacob, viz. Christ, in the kingdom of the human nature was manifest, so that man stood in Christ's image, then he desires to return from the servitude of this house wherein he must serve, and go again to his Father's first house, and desires to take with him his fruits, viz. his children, brethren and sisters, and all the children of this birth; he has a great longing after that, as Jacob had after his father's house. But the Lord says to him, Stay and serve here a while, and feed my sheep, appoint the wages that I shall give you (Gen. xxx. 28); that is, ask of me, so will I give it you, as Christ says, Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (John xvi. 23).n7424 ¶215
53. Thus then this Jacob demerses himself in humility, and keeps the sheep of Christ, in hope of the eternal wages, which follow after him; for in Joseph, that is, in Christ, the wages will be first given him; as Joseph was the wages of Jacob in the outward kingdom, and preserved and nourished him and his house in the famine. Which signifies Christ, who will eternally nourish us in himself; and bring us home with him into his Father's house, as Joseph brought his father and children into his lord's country.n7424 ¶216
The Fifty-Ninth Chaptern7424 ¶217
How Jacob departed from Laban: What this Figure signifies, and what is to be understood thereby [Gen. xxxi.]n7424 ¶218
1. IN this chapter for the most part is the outward history set forth, under which yet the spirit has its secret figure wherewith it plays, for the text says, And the words of the children of Laban came before Jacob, saying, Jacob has gotten all our father's goods to himself, and of our father's goods has he procured this riches. And Jacob looked upon Laban 's countenance, and saw that it was not towards him as formerly (Gen. xxxi. 1,2).n7424 ¶219
2. This is a figure represented in the spirit of Christ. When the spirit of Christ in man has gotten the kingdom of the human nature to himself, then the envy of the Serpent in the wrath of nature in flesh and blood awakes, understanding and feeling that the power of nature in man is taken away from him, and opposes the spirit of Christ in the power of nature.n7424 ¶220
3. Then proceeds the opposite will in man, so that the poor soul is everywhere faint and in an agony, perceiving that it dwells among strange goods, and that the devil is its neighbour, and has a continual access to its own nature, and opposes the soul, because it has, in Christ's spirit, taken away from him the kingdom of nature, viz. the land and country which he had for his possession. And therefore the mortal nature in the wrath of God sets its desire and endeavour against the poor soul, as a stranger, unfriendly, when it sees that it looses its voluptuous earthly inheritance (which right is intimated in the children of Laban, where reason looks to get temporal honour and pleasure), that all its natural right is taken away, as Jacob by subtlety took away Laban's goods.n7424 ¶221
4. Then thus says God to the soul, as here he did to Jacob, Return again into your father's country, to your kindred: I will be with you (Gen. xxxi. 3). That is, the poor soul should enter again into its first country of its father, viz. into the eternal Word, out of which it proceeded; and therein God blesses it, and therein it can also call its children and members, and bring them along out of the servile house of God's anger in the kingdom of nature, as Jacob called his wives and his children, and brought them out of the servitude of his father. Thus also the enlightened soul brings the power of its life in the kingdom of nature, together with its fellow-members, out of the servile house of flesh and blood, again into the first house, viz. into God's Word.n7424 ¶222
5. And as Jacob did flee from the servile house of his stepfather, and Laban pursued after and would hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 21-23), so also in like manner is done to the children of Christ, when they begin to flee out of the servile house of Satan, viz. out from fleshly pleasure and voluptuousness, and would again enter into its first land of its father, viz. into righteousness and the fear of God. Then instantly the fleshly crew of the wicked world, with rage and folly pursue after it and would slay it, and take away with evil and false tongues all its riches and goods in God's righteousness.n7424 ¶223
6. But the Lord awes them, that they cannot do it (as was done to Laban), though they stand up and reprove the children of God as unrighteous, because they turn away from their idols and abominations, and follow their hypocrisy no more, neither will they bear their evil yoke any more, and serve them in their unrighteousness, and call their falsehood, good. As the present world plays the hypocrite under this yoke, and serves their wickedness only that their god Mausim may live and be fat.n7424 ¶224
7. The spirit of God here also presents a figure, showing how Christ would for a while put himself under this servile yoke in the kingdom of nature, and would betroth to him Adam's daughter, that is, our flesh and blood, and acquire to himself Adam's possessions, goods and riches, viz. the kingdom or dominion of the human nature; that is, draw many men to him, and in the end go therewith out of this servile house of this world, again into his Father's eternal house, in which departure to his Father would the devil and the wicked world scorn him and quite slay him, and would take away and rob him of his goods, as also of his children which he has here begotten. Even as the devil, by the Pharisees and wicked Jews, did, who would take away and rob Christ of all his faithful children, as Laban pursued and hunted after Jacob, and would take away his purchased goods from him again.n7424 ¶225
8. But as God would not suffer Laban to hurt Jacob, (Gen. xxxi. 7), so God would not suffer the devil and the wicked high priests to rob Christ of his purchased goods. Although they slew his outward humanity, yet he rose again from the dead, and brought his purchased goods into his Father's country.n7424 ¶226
9. The spirit of Moses represents in this chapter a wonderful figure, which ought well to be observed, because he intimates a secret mystery under it: for he says, When Jacob did flee away from Laban, Rachel had stolen away her father's idol gods: and further says, Thus Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled:n7424 ¶227
and we see further, how Laban, when he came to Jacob, was eager after his idol gods, and searched all Jacob's household stuff for his idol gods. Also we see in this text, how Rachel was she that loved those idol gods, and sat upon them, and so hid them that her father could not get them again (Gen. xxxi. 19,20,30, 33,34).n7424 ¶228
10. In these words there is represented to us an outward and an inward figure, showing how it would go with Israel in the future. For these idol gods were not heathenish idols, according to the constellation or star (Acts vii. 43) Moloch, as the heathen had. But as we read, they made images, monuments, statues or pictures of their friends that were dead, as a pattern for instruction, which images among the heathen afterwards were turned to idols; and these might well be such images of his kindred that were dead, which Laban was loath to lose, because they were patterns of instruction, and memorials to him of his ancestors and deceased kindred whom he loved.n7424 ¶229
11. But the true figure under which the spirit points at the future, is this: First, That Israel would not continually cleave to God with their whole heart, but would always take these idol gods of fleshly self-love along with them, and love themselves and their images, viz. genealogies of human greatness, state, high birth and noble pedigrees of gentility, more than God, even as it came to pass.n7424 ¶230
12. Especially this departure of Jacob intimates the departure of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land, when they took with them also their fleshly idol gods, and presently after served their own idol gods (I Sam. viii. 8), viz. human greatness; and forsook their God, and regarded their Mammon, and would have kingr among them according to the custom of the heathen (I Sam. viii. 19), and forsook their right King, who had brought them out of Egypt.n7424 ¶231
13. Secondly, It intimates how Christ, in whose figure Jacob stood, would take to him this Rachel in our flesh and blood, viz. these, in Adam, idol-wills of the soul turned away from God, which has acquired to itself images and idols, and possessed them as Rachel; and would bring the averted wills of the soul, with their acquired idols and images, out of the idol's house or temple, which idols, viz. idolwills and desires, must afterwards be all broken to pieces in the deathn7424 ¶232
14. As presently the figure is represented to us, when God said to Jacob, Arise, and go to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. Then said Jacob to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away from you the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourself and change your garments:n7424 ¶233
And let us arise, and go to Bethel; that I may there make an altar to God, that heard me in the time of my trouble, and has been with me in the way which I have gone (Gen. xxxv. 1-3).n7424 ¶234
15. Which history of Jacob signifies nothing else but this, viz. when Christ would with this Rachel's idol gods, viz. our flesh and blood, depart from this servile house, and go to his Father, then he would by his going forth, when he should build the high altar before God (which altar is himself), layoff these our idols in human self-will, viz. every imagination of self-love, before the altar of God in his death, and cleanse our hearts, viz. our soul's will, and change our garments, viz. our flesh and blood; as this text in the thirty-fifth chapter clearly signifies, and wholly intends it, that Christ would offer us up upon that same Altar of his New Testament, to the God who appeared to us again in our trouble and misery after the fall, in his Covenant of grace.n7424 ¶235
16. But that the text of Moses says, Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he secretly fled away with his daughters (Gen. xxxi. 20, 21): it has the very same inward spiritual figure contained in it. For the Word became man, and took Laban's, viz. the earthly Adam's daughters, and brought them by divine subtlety away out of Adam's house into God's house, which in that place is called stealing, in that the children of Adam are thus stolen from the kingdom of God's wrath, that is, brought away in the divine wit and subtlety.n7424 ¶236
17. For the anger of God had possessed men in the right of nature, but Christ came and married with them, and stole them, together with the idol gods, away from the anger, and offered them up to God upon his Altar, which is himself and laid off the images of man's selflove, and cleansed our garments before God, that we might serve him at this Altar.n7424 ¶237
18. This is properly understood concerning Rachel's idol gods: the figure indeed sets down only the outward history, but the spirit of God has its figure under it. For the whole history of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stands inwardly in the figure of Christ; for the covenant between Laban and Jacob, and all that happened therein, is a figure of Christ; for Laban here stands in the figure of the kingdom of nature, and Jacob in the figure of Christ.n7424 ¶238
19. Laban upbraids Jacob, that he fled from him, and did not suffer him first to kiss his children, and that he might conduct them on their way with mirth and with tabrets (Gen. xxxi. 27, 28). Thus also does nature with the children of Christ, when they secretly flee from it, and forsake the idol's house [or temple]; then the children of nature's kingdom upbraid these children of Christ, for fickle forsworn people, for heretics, novellists, new lights, enthusiasts, or whatsoever sect can be named.n7424 ¶239
And say unto them, When you will depart from your wicked way and enter into another life, why do you not tell it to our high priests, that they may lead you onwards with their ceremonies, viz. confession, sacraments, intercessions? why do you not observe the usage of the Churches, where the kingdom of Christ is in mirth, with roaring, organs, and pipes? Why do you steal away from us secretly, and go another way than our ordinances and decrees prescribe? and therefore are enemies unto them, persecute them, and hunt them with censurings and disgraces, as evil children and forsworn, which had robbed them of their idol gods, and will not honour their hypocrisies for gods; as Laban pursued after Jacob and upbraids him, because he had not first kept that pageantry and solemnity, and told him beforehand that he would travel and be gone.n7424 ¶240
20. Thus Babel also would fain have it, that the children of Christ should only enter in to God through their pageantries and solemnities, and belly-ordinances; and whosoever will enter in to God otherwise than through their ordinances, and flee from this servile house [of bondage], he is damned and cannot come to God.n7424 ¶241
21. But Jacob can well go to his father without Laban's pageantry and solemnity; and though he upbraid Jacob and calls his way wrong, yet his way was right in the sight of God. For God had commanded him so, and Laban could not withhold him at all. So also Christ's children, when the spirit of Christ in them commands them to flee out from Babel, cannot be withheld; also it does not hurt them, though the world blames them never so for it, and scorn, deride, disgrace, and upbraids them for fools, heretics, and enthusiasts.n7424 ¶242
22. Yet the Most High reproves and charges Laban that he speak not otherwise to Jacob than friendly;! that is, the disdain 2 ofn7424 ¶243
Babel towards the children of Christ must, in the end, turn to their mere joy and kindness, and now Laban must let them depart with their goods and riches. For God commands his children to flee from Babel (Rev. xviii. 4), and to go into the first country of their father (out of which they are departed with Adam), not through the solemnity and pageantry of Babel, but through the conversion of the mind and will: viz. a new obedience.n7424 ¶244
1 Courteously and kindly.n7424 ¶245
2 Blasphemies, reproach, misusage.n7424 ¶246
23. For God has as much pleasure in the solemnity and pageantry of Babel, as in Laban's tabret and piping. He requires a penitent, converting heart, which in highest simplicity and humility, without any solemnity or pageantry, draws near unto him, and departs from Babel: with such a one he goes along and blesses him.n7424 ¶247
24. For when Jacob was gone forth, without solemnity and pageantry, then the angels of God met him, whom he called God's host (Gen.n7424 ¶248
which signifies that when the children of God go forth from human inventions 1 and imaginations, and account all earthly things as nothing, and slip away from the hypocrisy of all their titulary brethren, then they get the angels of God for a guard, who go along with them, and lead them on their way in their going out from Babel, as here was done to Jacob.n7424 ¶249
25. For as soon as Christ is born in a man, so that the mind goes forth out of the Adamical servile house of images, 2 then the angels of God are appointed his guardians.n7424 ¶250
1 Trifles, fables, chimeras, fantasies. 2 Or imaginary conceits.n7424 ¶251
The Sixtieth Chaptern7424 ¶252
How Esau went to Meet Jacob, with four hundred Men, Soldiers: what this signifies. And how Jacob sent a Present to his Brother Esau; and how a Man wrestled with him the whole Night. What all this means [Gen. xxxii.]n7424 ¶253