4642. 'He being Edom' means the Natural and bodily degree of the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the representation of 'Edom' as the Lord's Divine Human as regards natural good to which doctrinal matters concerning truth have been allied, dealt with in 3302, 3322, 4241, and so as regards the Natural and bodily degree. For so far as their relationship to truth is concerned matters of doctrine are so to speak its body; that is, in the spiritual sense they form the bodily parts of natural truth. This explains why 'Edom' represents the Natural and bodily degree of the Lord's Divine Human. The reason why doctrine is like the bodily covering given to truth is that in itself doctrine is not truth; rather truth resides within doctrine as the soul does within the body.

[2] In the verses that follow now the subject is the Lord's Divine Natural Good. But mere names are used to describe the derivatives within this, for the reason, as stated above, that the derivatives within that Good are far beyond the understanding any man possesses, and even beyond that of an angel. For angels are finite beings, and that which is finite cannot comprehend that which is Infinite. Even so, when this chapter is read a general impression is conveyed to angels of the derivatives contained in the names that are given. It is conveyed to them by an influx of Divine Love from the Lord, and this influx by a heavenly flame which gives them a feeling for what Divine Good is.

[3] Anyone who thinks that the Word is not inspired even to the smallest letter, or who thinks that the Word is inspired in some other manner than one in which strings of detailed information represent Divine matters, and so also celestial and spiritual ones, and that such strings of information have those matters as their spiritual meaning, cannot do other than suppose that the names used imply nothing more than genealogical details to do with the people descended from Esau. What real connection do genealogical details have with the Word; do they have anything Divine within them? But all names in the Word have spiritual realities as their meaning, see 1224, 1264, 1876, 1888, 4442, as well as every other place where explanations are given regarding the spiritual meanings of names.

2882. The main reason why a person believes that he has no freedom is his awareness that he, of himself, is incapable of doing what is good and thinking what is true. But let him not also believe that anyone ever has or has had of himself any freedom to think what is true and to do what is good. Not even those people had that freedom of themselves who, because they were utterly blameless, were called the image and likeness of God. But all freedom to think the truth of faith and to do a good deed of charity flows in from the Lord. The Lord is Good itself and Truth itself, and consequently their fountainhead. All angels possess that freedom and indeed the perception itself that all that has been said here is so. Inmost angels perceive how much comes from the Lord and how much from themselves, but that insofar as it comes from the Lord they know happiness and insofar as it comes from themselves they do not.