5161. 'That he made a feast for all his servants' means the introduction and joining to the exterior natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'a feast' as the introduction to a joining together, dealt with in 3832, and also as a joining together through love and a making one's own, 3596; and from the meaning of 'servants' as the things which belong to the exterior natural. For when a person is being regenerated lower things are made subordinate and subject to higher ones, that is, exterior things are made so to interior ones. When this happens the exterior things become servants, and the interior become masters. This is the meaning 'servants' has in the Word, see 2541, 3019, 3020. But the kinds of people who become 'servants' are those who are loved by the Lord, for it is mutual love which joins them together and leads them to see their service to Him not as bondage but as whole-hearted allegiance, since good enters from within to produce that kind of delight there. In former times feasts were held for various reasons; and they meant an introduction into mutual love and so meant a joining together. Feasts were also held on birthdays; these represented the new birth or regeneration, which is a joining, through love, of a person's interiors to his exteriors, consequently a joining together in him of heaven and the world. For what is worldly or natural in a person is joined to what is spiritual and celestial.

2541. 'And called his servants' means rational concepts and factual knowledge. This is clear from the meaning of 'servants' in the Word, dealt with further on at verse 14, in 2567. Within the person who is in the Lord's kingdom, that is, who is the Lord's kingdom, there are celestial things, spiritual things, rational concepts, factual knowledge, and sensory impressions; and all these are ordered one beneath another. Celestial things and spiritual things hold the primary position and are the Lord's; rational concepts come next in order beneath them and are subservient to them; factual knowledge in turn comes beneath and serves rational concepts; and lastly sensory impressions come beneath and serve factual knowledge. The things which are subservient, or which serve, are in these relationships servants, and in the Word they are called 'servants'. Anyone whose thought is based solely on sensory impressions and factual knowledge is unaware of these things existing in their ordered sequence; and anyone who does know something about them nevertheless has only a very obscure idea because he is still immersed in bodily interests. Angels however have a very distinct idea, for thousands, indeed myriads, of distinct and separate ideas existing with angels do not present themselves to men except as one single obscure idea, as for example with the words that occur here, 'Abimelech called his servants and spoke all these words in their ears; and the men were very much afraid'. In these words angels perceive deeper arcana than man can possibly grasp or is indeed able to believe; that is to say, they perceive how the Lord brought rational concepts and factual knowledge into a condition of obedience, yet in such a way that He did not bring into that condition the rational concepts and the factual knowledge themselves but the affections rising up against the celestial and the spiritual things of doctrine; for it was when those affections had been brought into subjection that rational concepts and factual knowledge were brought into a condition of obedience and at the same time into order. These matters are to angels some of the most common and general; but to man they are perhaps some of the most obscure or are unintelligible.