Under the Thigh Covenant

Neville's Inner Vision

Here the scene is the inner drama of consciousness. Israel is not a man on a bed, but the state of awareness at the threshold of a decision. He says, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. In Neville's terms, grace is the endowment of a state; thy sight is the intensity of attention. The hand under the thigh stands for the consent of the will to the dominant idea—the chosen imagination. To bury me not in Egypt is to pledge that the mind will not identify with the 'Egypt' of limitation—the external, the known world—but with the promised land of inner realization. The oath is the mental contract you give to the I AM, that you will not waver from the vision, that you will act in faith by assuming the end from the end. Israel bowing upon the bed's head signifies surrender to the higher idea, letting the manifestation of the self be governed by the inward decree. Thus, a covenant is born and realities tilt toward home within.