4401. 'And he set up an altar there' means interior worship. This is clear from the meaning of 'setting up an altar' as worship, for the altar was the chief representative of the Lord, 921, 2777, 2811, and therefore the chief feature of worship. By worship here is meant interior worship originating in the Divine Spiritual, dealt with in the paragraph following this.

3469. 'Esau was a son of forty years' means a state of temptation as regards the natural good of truth. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' as natural good of truth, dealt with in 3300, 3302, 3322, and from the meaning of 'forty years' as a state of temptation - 'forty' meaning temptations, see 730, 862, 2272, and 'years' states, 487, 488, 493, 893. The reason why these details concerning Esau are added immediately after what has been told regarding Abimelech and Isaac is that the subject has been those who do the good of truth, that is, those who live in accordance with matters of doctrine drawn from the literal sense of the Word; for such people were meant by Abimelech, Ahuzzath, and Phicol, as stated above in various places.

[2] People therefore who do the good of truth, or who live in accordance with matters of doctrine, are regenerate as regards interior things, which are their rational concepts, but not yet as regards exterior, which are their natural things. For a person is regenerated as to the rational part of his mind before being regenerated as to the natural part, 3286, 3288. The natural exists wholly in this world, and it is on the natural as their foundation that the person's thought and will are based. This is the reason why, while being regenerated, a person is aware of conflict between his rational or internal man and his natural or external man, and why his external is regenerated much later and with far more difficulty than the internal. Indeed what is closer to the world and closer to the body cannot be easily rendered subservient to the internal man except over a considerable period of time and by means of very many new states into which it has to be brought. These states are states of self-recognition and of recognition of the Lord, that is to say, of his own miserable condition and of the Lord's mercy, and so of humiliation, through conflicts brought about by temptations. This being so, there is immediately added at this point the reference to Esau and his two wives, by which such things are meant in the internal sense.

[3] It is well known to anyone what natural good is, namely the good into which a person is born. But what the natural good of truth is, is known to few, if anyone. There are four types of natural good, or good that one is born with. These are, natural good that stems from the love of good; natural good that stems from the love of truth; also natural good that stems from the love of evil; and natural good that stems from the love of falsity. A person derives the good that he is born with from his parents, whether from father or from mother. For every characteristic which parents have acquired from frequent practice and conduct, that is, which they have taken into themselves by their own actions in life until with them they have become so habitual as to appear natural, is passed on to their children and becomes hereditary. If parents have led a good life from a love of good and have experienced delight and blessedness in that life, and if this is their state when they conceive an offspring, their offspring acquires from them an inclination towards this same form of good. If parents have led a good life from a love of truth - for which good, see 3459, 3463 - and have experienced delight in that life, and if this is their state when they conceive an offspring, their offspring acquires from them an inclination towards that same form of good. And the same applies to those who by heredity receive the good that stems from a love of evil and the good that stems from a love of falsity.

[4] The latter are called good because the kinds of good done by them seem in outward appearance to be good, despite the fact that there is nothing good at all about them. Very many with whom natural good is apparent possess this type of good. Those with whom natural good that stems from love of evil is present tend and incline towards evils of every kind, for they readily allow themselves to be led astray. That good is the source of their susceptibility especially towards foul delights, different kinds of adultery, and also of cruelty. Those with whom natural good stemming from a love of falsity is present incline towards falsities of every kind. Because of that good they seize on false persuasion, especially that used by hypocrites and deceivers, who know how to win people's attention, worm their way into affections, and feign innocence. Into these so-called forms of good - of good that stems from evil or from falsity - the majority are born at the present day in the Christian world, in whom natural good exists, the reason being that their parents have acquired a delight in evil and a delight in falsity through their own actions in life, and in this way have implanted it in their children, and so in their descendants.