4513. Verses 30-31 And Jacob said to Simeon and to Levi, You have brought trouble on me, by making me stink to the inhabitant of the land, to the Canaanite and the Perizzite; and I am [a few] mortals in number, and they will be gathered together against me and will smite me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. And they said, Is he going to treat our sister like a prostitute?

'Jacob said' means the external Ancient Church. 'To Simeon and Levi' means that which was the representative of spiritual and celestial things. 'You have brought trouble on me, by making me stink to the inhabitant of the land' means that those who belonged to the Ancient Church abominated them. 'To the Canaanite and the Perizzite' means those who are governed by good and truth. 'And I am [a few] mortals in number' means that it would be easy.... 'And they will be gathered together against me and will smite me, and I shall be destroyed' means, for the Ancient Church so to perish. 'I and my house' means as regards truth and good. 'And they said' means the reply. 'Is he going to treat our sister like a prostitute?' means on account of the fact that they had no affection [for truth].

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.