3687. 'And Esau went to Ishmael, and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son' means the joining of that good to truth from a Divine source. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' as the good of the natural, dealt with above, and from the representation of 'Ishmael the son of Abraham' as truth from a Divine source - 'Ishmael' representing the Lord's spiritual Church, and consequently truth, see 1949-1951, 2078, 2691, 2699, 3268, and 'Abraham' the Lord's Divine, which is called 'the Father', 2010, 3251, 3439. Consequently 'Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son' means truth from a Divine source. That 'taking a wife' means being brought into association or joined together is self-evident. From this it is clear that 'Esau went to Ishmael, and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son' means the joining of that good to truth from a Divine source.

2691. 'God heard the boy's voice' means help at that point. This is clear from the meaning in the internal sense of 'God hearing the voice 'the words used in the historical sense - as bringing help, and from the meaning of 'the boy' as spiritual truth, dealt with already. Here a state is meant in which the spiritual as regards truth existed, for it is said that 'He heard the boy's voice' and soon after in this verse that 'He heard the boy's voice where he was', that is to say, where he was as to state. And, in the explanations of the verses immediately before, this state was shown to be one of utmost grief because truth had been taken away. The reason it was the boy's voice, not Hagar's, that God is said to have heard is that the state of the spiritual man is the subject. 'The boy', or Ishmael, represents the member of the spiritual Church, 'Hagar his mother' the affection for cognitions of truth, it being within this affection that the grief was felt. Man's rational is born from the affection for factual knowledge as a mother, 1895, 1896, 1902, 1910, 2094, 2524, but his spiritual is born from the affection for cognitions of truth acquired from doctrine, chiefly from the Word. Here the spiritual itself is 'the boy', and the affection for cognitions of truth is 'Hagar'.