2341. 'And he made a feast for them' means dwelling together. This is clear from the meaning of 'a feast'. 'Feasts' are mentioned in various places in the Word, and in those places they mean in the internal sense dwelling together, as in Jeremiah,

The word of Jehovah came to him, You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. Jeremiah 16:8.

In that chapter the prophet is told many things by which he was to represent the necessity for good to have no connection with evil, nor truth to have any with falsity. Among other things he was required 'not to go into the house of feasting', which meant that good and truth were not to dwell together with evil and falsity.

[2] In Isaiah,

Jehovah Zebaoth will make on this mountain a feast of fat things for all peoples, a feast of sweet wines, of fat things full of marrow, of wines well-refined. Isaiah 25:6.

Here 'mountain' stands for love to the Lord, 795, 1430. People with whom that love exists dwell together with the Lord in good and truth, which are meant by 'a feast'. 'Fat things' and those 'full of marrow' are goods, 353, 'sweet and well-refined wines' are truths deriving from goods, 1071.

[3] The feasts made from the consecrated elements when sacrifices were offered represented in the Jewish Church nothing else than the Lord's dwelling together with man within the holy things of love meant by sacrifices, 2187. The same was at a later time meant by the Holy Supper, which the Primitive Church called a feast.

[4] Chapter 21 below refers to Abraham making a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned, in verse 8. This feast represented and therefore meant the dwelling together and initial conjunction of the Lord's Divine itself with His Human Rational. 'Feasts' have the same meaning in the internal sense in other places, as may also be deduced from the fact that feasts are occasions involving a number of people who are all simultaneously filled with love and charity, who are opening their minds to one another, and who are enjoying together the glad feelings that are the expressions of love and charity.

1767. ¹ Genesis 15

SACRED SCRIPTURE, OR THE WORD, AND HOW IT CONCEALS WITHIN ITSELF DIVINE MATTERS WHICH ARE FULLY VISIBLE TO GOOD SPIRITS AND TO ANGELS

When the Word of the Lord is being read by someone who loves the Word and leads a charitable life - even by one who, because he is simple-hearted, believes what is written and has not formed opinions that are contrary to the truth of faith that lies within the internal sense - the Lord also sets the Word before the angels. The Lord does so in such beauty and such loveliness, using representatives as well, with indescribable variations, each of which accords with the angels' entire state at the time, that every detail is perceived as if it had life. This life is that which is present within the Word and from which the Word was given birth when it was sent down from heaven. By reason of this, although in the letter it appears rough and imperfect, the Word of the Lord is such that inwardly there are concealed spiritual and celestial things, which are fully visible to good spirits and to angels while it is being read by man.

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