3507. 'Rebekah was listening to Isaac while he spoke to [Esau] his son' means the affection for truth and the life from that affection. This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Lord's Divine Rational as regards Divine Truth joined to Divine Good there, and so as the affection itself for truth; and from the meaning of 'listening to Isaac while he spoke' as the life from that affection. For in the internal sense 'listening to someone speaking' means influx, and it does so because in the representative sense 'listening to' means being obedient, 2542, and 'speaking' means willing and flowing in, 2626, 2952, 3037; so that in the highest sense 'listening to someone speaking' is the life from that affection, that is to say, the life of Divine Truth received from Divine Good. 'To his son' in the internal sense has reference to the good of the natural and from this to the truth of the natural. Being far removed from the sense of the letter, which is the historical sense, the meaning held within these words is scarcely apparent; but such a meaning is nevertheless present there.

[2] Indeed angelic ideas are not at all like human ideas. Angelic ideas are spiritual; and when they become more interior they are celestial, whereas human ideas are natural, and when formed from things that happened in history are sensory impressions. The Lord however has effected through the Word such a correspondence between spiritual things which belong to heaven and natural ones which belong to the world that natural ideas are converted in an instant into spiritual ones. Consequently heaven is joined to the world through mankind, and in particular through the Word, and so through the Church in which the Word is present. The fact that the correspondence of natural things and spiritual exists in every single thing that can be grasped and perceived mentally will in the Lord's Divine mercy be clear from what is to be stated from experience about the Grand Man at the ends of chapters below.

2523. 'She is my sister' means that it was the rational which ought to be consulted, that is to say, He thought that such a consultation should take place. This is clear from the meaning of 'a sister' in this chapter as rational truth, dealt with in 1495, 2508. In the internal sense of the Word the Lord's entire life is described, as it was going to be when He was in the world, even as to His perceptions and thoughts. For these things had been foreseen and provided, since they were from the Divine. A further reason for this provision of them in the internal sense was so that the things of the Lord's life in the world might be manifested as present realities to the angels, who perceive the Word according to its internal sense. In this way the Lord was placed before them, and at the same time the manner in which He gradually cast off the human and put on the Divine. Unless these things had been manifested to the angels as present realities by means of the Word, and also by means of all the religious observances of the Jewish Church, it would have been necessary for the Lord to come into the world immediately after the fall of the Most Ancient Church, which is called 'Man' or Adam; for the Lord's Advent was foretold immediately the Fall took place, Genesis 3:15. And what is more, the human race existing at that time could not otherwise have been saved.

[2] As regards the Lord's life itself, it was a life in which the Human was constantly advancing towards the Divine, even to complete union, as stated many times already. For to fight the hells and overcome them He had to do so from the Human, since no conflict with the hells takes place from the Divine. That being so, He was pleased to put on the human as any other person; to be a small child as any other; to grow in knowledge and cognitions which were represented and meant by Abraham's sojourning in Egypt, Chapter 12, and now in Gerar. Thus He was pleased to develop the rational like any other person and to dispel the shadow enveloping it and to bring it into light, and to do so from His own power. That the Lord advanced in this manner from the Human to the Divine, no one can be in any doubt if he merely considers the fact that He was a small child, and learned to talk as any small child does, and so on. But there was this difference, that the Divine itself dwelt within Him because He had been conceived from Jehovah.