4341. 'And four hundred men with him' means a state, in this case the state when Divine Good and Truth within the Natural are joined together, since that joining together is the subject. In the Word 'four hundred' means a state of temptation and the duration of it, 1847, 2959, 2966. And since every joining together of good and truth is effected by means of temptations it is the state of temptations that is meant here. For temptations are the means by which goods are joined to truths, see 2272, 3318, and temptations come when good starts to play the leading role, 4248, 4249; also the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence was effected by means of temptations, 1737.

[2] It is not the good itself which is to be joined to truth that is tempted, but the truth. Nor is truth tempted by good but by falsities and evils, and also by misconceptions and illusions, and by the affection for these, which cling to the truths within the natural. For when good flows in, which it does by an internal route, that is, through the internal rational man, the ideas possessed by the natural man which have been formed from the misconceptions of the senses and from illusions resulting from these cannot bear the approach of it, for they do not accord with it; and this gives rise to distress within the natural and to temptation. These are the factors which in the internal sense of this chapter are described by the fear and therefore the distress that Jacob felt, and his consequent state of submission and humiliation when Esau was coming with four hundred men. For the joining together of good and truth is never effected by any other means. From this it may be seen that 'four. hundred men' means a state of temptations - 'four hundred' the actual state itself, 'men' rational truths which have been joined to good when this flows into the natural. For 'men' means things of the understanding and of the rational, see 265, 749, 1007, 3134.

[3] But these considerations are such that they pass into the unlit parts of the human mind, the reason being that while a person is living in the body the difference between the rational and the natural cannot be seen. It is not seen at all by those who are not regenerate, and barely so by those who are, since they neither reflect on nor are even interested in the matter. For knowledge of the interior aspects of the human being has been virtually wiped out, yet in former times that knowledge constituted the whole of intelligence among people within the Church. Those considerations are however able to be substantiated to some extent from what has been shown already about the rational and its influx into the natural, that is to say, from the explanation that the natural is regenerated by means of the rational, 3286, 3288, and that the rational receives truths before the natural does so, 3321, 3368, 3671. It is these truths which flow, accompanied by good, from the rational into the natural that are meant in the internal sense by the four hundred men who accompanied Esau.

4248. 'And four hundred men with him' means its state now, set to take up the first position. This is clear from the meaning of 'four hundred' strictly speaking as temptations and the time these lasted, dealt with in 2959, 2966. This is the state that is meant, as becomes clear from the details that follow, namely that he was exceedingly afraid and was distressed and therefore divided his camp into two, verses 7-8, and also that out of fear he prayed intensely to Jehovah, verses 9-12, and finally wrestled with an angel, by which wrestling is meant temptation, as will be clear from the explanation of that wrestling later on in this chapter. When the state of one who is being regenerated is turned around, that is, when good takes up the first position, temptations arrive. He is unable to undergo them prior to that because he does not as yet possess the cognitions with which he may defend himself and to which he may resort to receive comfort. For this reason also no one undergoes temptations until he reaches adult life, temptations being experiences which unite truths to good, 2272, 3318, 3696, 3928. From this it is evident that 'four hundred men with him' means a state when good is set to take up the first position.