4277. 'And he touched the hollow of his thigh' means where celestial-spiritual good is joined to natural good meant by 'Jacob'. This is clear from the meaning of 'the thigh' as conjugial love, and consequently as all celestial and spiritual love, since these are derived from conjugial love as offspring from their parent, dealt with in 3021; and from the meaning of 'the hollow' or socket or cavity of it - that is to say, of the thigh - as the place where the joining together exists, and here therefore where celestial-spiritual good is joined to natural good meant by 'Jacob'. But no one can be told anything about that conjunction unless he knows first of all what celestial-spiritual good, meant by 'Israel', is, and what natural good, meant by 'Jacob', is. It will be told below at verse 28 where Jacob, who at that point is named Israel, is the subject and also further on where Jacob's descendants are the subject.

6641. 'And every soul, those who came out of Jacob's thigh' means everything that springs from general truth. This is clear from the meaning of soul' in an ordinary sense as a person, here a member of the spiritual Church, though in the internal sense truth and goodness are meant by 'soul' because these are what make a person human, 6605, 6626; from the meaning of 'thigh' as conjugial love, dealt with in 3021, 4277, 4280, 5050-5062, and - since 'thigh' means conjugial love - as all love, both celestial and spiritual, 3021, 4277, 4280, 4575, so that 'coming out of the thigh' means truth and goodness springing from the heavenly marriage, and consequently the Church's truth and good (for these when they are genuine are born from the heavenly marriage, which is a marriage of goodness and truth); and from the representation of 'Jacob' as truth and also good in the natural, but truth and good as a general whole since his sons are separate truths and forms of good within that general whole, dealt with in 6637. The reason why 'Jacob' here represents truths as a general whole is that the subject is the spiritual Church. For this Church begins in truths as a general whole, and by means of them is led into its good. With a member of the spiritual Church there is no knowledge of what spiritual good is, nor thus any acceptance of it, except through truth; for he does not have from good any perception of truth such as a member of the celestial Church has.

6626. Let me recount some marvels. The Lord alone is Man, and it is owing to Him that angels, spirits, and inhabitants of the world are called men. By His own flowing into heaven He causes the whole of heaven to represent and resemble one human being; and through an influx both by way of heaven and directly from Himself into each individual there He causes all to be seen as men, and angels to be seen in a form more beautiful and dazzling than anyone can possibly describe. He does the same for people on earth by flowing into their spirits. Indeed with an angel, spirit, or man who leads a life of charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord the smallest aspects of all that belong to his thought resemble a human being, for the reason that that charity and that love originate in the Lord, and whatever originates in the Lord resembles a human being. Those qualities are also what constitute a human being. But the contrary applies in hell, because those who are there are fired by the opposites of charity and heavenly love. They do, it is true, look like human beings when seen in their own inferior light, but in the superior light of heaven they look like horrible monsters, in some of whom scarcely anything of the human form is recognizable. The reason for this is that the inflow of the Lord by way of heaven is not accepted but is turned away, or smothered, or perverted, which therefore causes them to be seen as such monsters. And the smallest aspects of their thought, that is, their ideas, similarly possess forms such as these; for what anyone is like as a whole, so he is in part, since the whole and the part are the same in type and nature. The form in which those people are seen is also the form of the hell in which they exist. For every hell has its own form, which in the light of heaven resembles a monster; and when one sees any of those who are from it one recognizes from their form which hell they are from. I have seen them in the gates that lie open into the world of spirits, where they looked like many different kinds of monsters. Regarding the gates of hell, that they lie open into the world of spirits, see 5852.