4117. 'And he set his face towards mount Gilead' means good within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'mount' as the celestial element of love, which is good, dealt with in 795, 1430, to which the good meant by 'Jacob' was joined - 'Gilead' meaning the essential nature of it. Since the river was the boundary and, as has been stated, meant the first phase of the joining together, 'mount Gilead', which lay in this part away from the Jordan, means the good involved in that first stage of the joining together.

[2] The land of Gilead where the mountain was situated lay within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. It was situated on this side of the Jordan, and was granted as an inheritance to the Reubenites and the Gadites, and in particular to the half-tribe of Manasseh. And since the inheritances stretched out that far, it is said that it was situated within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. The fact that this territory was granted as an inheritance to those tribes is clear in Moses, Numbers 32:1, 26-41; Deuteronomy 3:8, 10-16; Joshua 13:24-31. For this reason when the land of Canaan was envisaged in its entirety it was said to stretch from Gilead even to Dan, and in another sense from Beersheba even to Dan, for Dan also was a boundary, 1710, 3923. Regarding its stretching from Beersheba even to Dan, see 2858, 2859; and reference to its doing so from Gilead to Dan occurs in Moses,

Moses went up from the plains of Moab onto mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is in the direction of Jericho. There Jehovah showed him the whole land, Gilead even to Dan. Deuteronomy 34:1.

And in the Book of Judges,

Gilead dwelling at the crossing of the Jordan; and Dan, why will he fear ships? Judges 5:17.

[3] Because it was a boundary, 'Gilead' in the spiritual sense means the good that comes first, which is that of the bodily senses, for it is the good or delight of the senses that a person who is being regenerated is introduced into first of all. This is the sense in which 'Gilead' is taken in the Prophets, as in Jeremiah 8:22; 22:6; 46:11; 50:19; Ezekiel 47:18; Obad. verse 19; Micah 7:14; Zechariah 10:10; Psalms 60:7; and in the contrary sense, in Hosea 6:8; 12:11.

2767. That 'so it was after these events' means after these things had taken place is clear without explanation. These things, which have received explanation, are those to do with Abimelech and Abraham's making a covenant in Beersheba, and finally with Abraham's establishment of a grove in Beersheba, by which was meant that human rational ideas were allied to the doctrine of faith, which in itself is Divine. Now the subject becomes the temptation of the Lord as regards the Rational, meant by Isaac; for by means of temptations the Lord made His Human Divine, and thus His Rational in which the human has its beginnings, 2106, 2194. He made it Divine by suppressing and driving out everything in the rational which was merely human, that is, which was the maternal human. The present verse serves as the link between the matters dealt with in the previous chapter and those dealt with in this; hence the words that occur here, 'So it was after these events, that God tempted Abraham'.