Kabbalah Library

65) The Torah counted Jacob’s sons, first as twelve and then as seventy, as it is written, “All the souls of the house of Jacob, that came to Egypt, were seventy.” What is the reason that they were seventy and not more? It corresponds to the seventy nations that are in the world, for they were one nation opposite all of them.

66) The illuminating keys are the sweetened Malchut that ends in Yesod, which is called key. Their branches sit in their journeys when they shine during the journey of the three lines. Also, they are appointed over seventy nations that emerge from the twelve engravings and ties that surround in their journeys in the order of the three lines, which are equal to the four directions of the world, HG TM.

Even though their journeys are only on three lines, HGT, they shine in four directions, which are HGT and Malchut. And there are only three in each, which are the three lines, and four times three are twelve. And since they shine in Malchut, too, they can rule over seventy nations.

It is written, “He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.” The number twelve in the children of Israel shines to the seventy nations. It is written, “For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven” means that the three lines will shine in all four directions, HG TM, indicating that they exist for Israel, which are the twelve tribes. It is not written, “In the four” but “As the four,” since as the world cannot be without four directions, the world cannot be without Israel.