3550. 'I am Esau your firstborn' means that it believed itself to be natural good itself. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' and from the meaning of 'firstborn' as good, and indeed natural good, represented by 'Esau'. For the truth which a person possesses prior to regeneration is believed by him to be good itself. People who have perception know that it is not good but truth appearing under the form of good; but those who do not have perception are not aware of any such difference, as will also be more evident from what follows below.

Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases -- when it is connected to ideas or objects -- its spiritual meaning and natural meaning are essentially the same. When the Bible talks about people knowing each other and especially when it talks about the Lord knowing people, the meaning has more to do with the states of love within people than it does with any factual knowledge. This makes sense if you think about it. When we really "know" somebody, what we mean is that we know what kind of person they are, what their motivations are, what they love, what they hate, what makes them tick. Those things are far more important than knowing their parents' names, where they were born or what year they graduated from school. Most often then, especially applied to people, "knowing" has to do with the perceptions we have about other people's loves and the conjunction that can exist between those with similar loves, not just a collection of facts.