5527. 'And you will wander through the land, trading' means that truths from good will thereby be made fruitful and will all afford some useful purpose and lead to some form of gain. This is clear from the meaning of 'trading' as acquiring for oneself cognitions of good and truth, and so truths known to the Church, and communicating the same, dealt with in 4453; and those who possess such truths are called 'traders', 2967. Consequently 'going through the land, trading' is gathering such truths, wherever they are. From this it follows that 'going through the land, trading' also means the fruitfulness of truths from good. For once the joining together through the intermediary, which is 'Benjamin', has been accomplished, that is to say, once the external man, which is 'the ten sons of Jacob', has been joined to the internal, which is 'Joseph' - which joining together is dealt with here - or what amounts to the same, once a person has been regenerated, good is constantly making truths fruitful.

[2] For someone who is governed by good possesses the ability to see particular truths that derive from general ones, and to see them in a continuing sequence. This is more especially the case at a later stage in the next life when worldly and bodily matters cease to cast a shadow over them. I have been allowed to know from considerable experience that good brings this ability with it. Such experience has included spirits who had possessed not so much of that ability when they lived as people in the world but who had nevertheless led charitable lives. I have seen those spirits raised up into heavenly communities, where they have then possessed intelligence and wisdom akin to that of the angels there; indeed these knew no other than that such intelligence and wisdom existed within those spirits. For the good which had governed the lives they had led gave them the ability to receive everything that flowed into them from the angelic communities in which they were present. This kind of ability exists within good and so therefore does that kind of fruitfulness. But the truths which with them are made fruitful by good do not remain as truths; these people make them matters of life, in which case they come to be assigned to some useful purpose. Therefore 'wandering through the land, trading' also means that all truths will afford some useful purpose and lead to some form of gain.

1436. 'And [every] soul which they had gained in Haran' means every essential with life in it that was possible in that obscure state. This is clear from the meaning of 'soul' as an essential that has life in it, and from the meaning of 'Haran' as an obscure state, dealt with in the previous verse. 'Soul' in the proper sense means that with man which possesses life, and so his life itself. That in man which has life in it is not the body but the soul, and it is through the soul that the body receives life. The life itself in man, that is, that which has life, is derived from heavenly love; nothing with life in it is possible if that love is not the source of it. This explains why 'soul' here means the good which derives its life from heavenly love, this good being the fundamental essential that has life in it. In the literal sense 'soul' is used here to mean every human being, and also all the livestock, and which they had acquired to themselves; but in the internal sense nothing else is meant than [every] essential with life in it.