4116. 'And crossed the river' means a state in which a joining together takes place. This is clear from the meaning of 'the river', which in this case is the Euphrates, as a joining together, namely a joining to the Divine. The reason 'the river' has this meaning here is that it was the boundary separating the land of Canaan from that region, and all the boundaries of the land of Canaan were representative of and consequently meant spiritually that which came last and yet first - last because that was where it came to an end, and first because it was where it began. For all boundaries are such that they come last for those who are going out of the country but first for those who are coming in. Because Jacob was at that point coming in, that river was the first boundary that he crossed, and so means a joining together - in the highest sense a joining to the Divine; for 'the land of Canaan' in the internal sense means the Lord's heavenly kingdom, 1607, 3481, and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Human, 3038, 3705. From all this one may see what is meant here by 'he crossed the river'. For all things in the land of Canaan were representative, with distances, positions, and boundaries determining their individual representations, see 1585, 3686; thus the rivers which served as boundaries, such as the river of Egypt, the river Euphrates, and the river Jordan, were representative, 1866.

Gilead, as in Genesis 31:21, 23, was a boundary of the land of Canaan. In the spiritual sense, it means "the good that comes first, which is that of the bodily senses, for it is the good or delight of the senses that a person who is being regenerated is introduced into first of all. This is the sense in which 'Gilead' is taken in the Prophets, as in Jeremiah 8:52; 22:6; 46:11; 50:19; Ezekiel 47:18; Obadiah 1:19; Micah 7:14; Zechariah 10:10; Psalm 60:7; and, in the opposite sense, in Hosea 6:8; 12:11.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4117)