146. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. That this signifies that to those who conquer in temptations will be given the delight of heavenly love from the Divine Human of the Lord is evident from the signification of him that overcometh, as being those who conquer in temptations; for such are treated of in what is written to the angel of this church (as may be seen above, n. 130); also from the signification of I will give to eat, as being to be appropriated and conjoined by love and charity (concerning which see Arcana Coelestia 2187, 2343, 3168, 3513, 5643), and because it is said concerning the hidden manna, by which is meant the Lord as to the Divine Human; by eating thereof, is here signified the delight of heavenly love, for this is appropriated from the Divine Human of the Lord by those who receive Him in love and faith; and from the signification of the hidden manna, as being the Lord as to the Divine Human.

That this is what is meant by manna is evident from the words of the Lord Himself in John:

"Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. The bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is that bread which cometh down from heaven, that he that eateth of it may not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever. The bread that I will give is my flesh" (6:31-58).

That it is the Lord Himself who is meant by manna and by bread, He plainly teaches, for He says, "I am the bread of life that came down from heaven." That it is the Lord as to the Divine Human, He also teaches when He says, "The bread which I will give is my flesh."

[2] The Lord taught the same when He instituted the holy supper:

"Jesus took bread, and blessed, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body" (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19).

To eat of this bread is to be conjoined to Him by love, for to eat signifies to appropriate and be conjoined, as said above; and love is spiritual conjunction. The same thing is signified by eating in the kingdom of God, in Luke:

"Blessed is he that eateth bread in the kingdom of God" (14:15).

Again:

"Ye shall eat and drink at my table in the kingdom of God" (22:30).

In Matthew:

"Many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom" of God (8:11).

(That by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is meant the Lord, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 1893, 4615, 6098, 6185, 6276, 6804, 6847.)

And in John:

"Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man will give unto you" (6:27).

[3] (That the Son of man is the Lord as to the Divine Human, may be seen above, n. 63.) The reason why it is called hidden manna is, because the delight of heavenly love, which those receive who are conjoined to the Lord by love is quite unknown to those who are not in heavenly love; and this delight no one can receive but he who acknowledges the Divine Human of the Lord; for it proceeds from this. Because this delight was unknown to the sons of Israel in the desert, they therefore called it manna, as is evident in Moses:

"Jehovah said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And in the morning the dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the desert there lay a small round thing; and when they saw it, they said, It is manna (What is this?). Moses said unto them, This is the bread which Jehovah hath given you to eat. And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna" (Exodus 16:3 to the end).

"Jehovah fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live" (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The reason why this delight, which is meant by manna, was unknown to the sons of Israel was, that they were in bodily delight more than other nations; and those who are in this delight cannot know anything at all of heavenly delight. (That the sons of Israel were of such a character may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 248.) It is called delight, and by this is meant the delight of love; for all the delight of life is from love.

[4] Because it is the delight of heavenly love that is signified by eating of the hidden manna, it is therefore called the bread of the heavens in David:

"Jehovah commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of the heavens; and rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the corn of the heavens" (Psalm 78:23, 24).

And in another place:

"Jehovah satisfied them with the bread of the heavens" (Psalm 105:40).

It is called the bread of the heavens because it rained down from heaven with the dew, but in the spiritual sense it is called the bread of the heavens because it flows down from the Lord through the angelic heaven; in this sense, no other heaven is meant, and no other bread than that which nourishes the soul of man. That bread is here meant in this sense is evident from the words of the Lord himself in John, where He says, that

He is the manna or bread which came down from heaven (John 6:31-58).

And in Moses, where it is said

that Jehovah fed them with manna that He might teach that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The utterance of the mouth of Jehovah is everything that proceeds from the Lord, and this, specifically, is Divine truth united with Divine good (as may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 13, 133, 139, 140, 284-290).

[5] This delight is also described by correspondences in Moses:

The manna was "like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like a cake made with honey" (Exodus 16:31).

And in another place:

"They made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as of the juice of oil" (Numbers 11:7, 8).

The reason why the manna had such an appearance and taste was, that the white seed of coriander signifies truth from a celestial origin, a cake the good of celestial love, honey its external delight, oil that love itself, and its juice, whence was the taste, its internal delight, and the rain with the dew, in which the manna was, the influx of Divine truth in which that delight is contained. (That seed signifies truth from a heavenly origin, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 3038, 3373, 10248, 10249: that white is said of that truth, n. 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319; that cake signifies the good of heavenly love, n. 7978, 9992, 9993; that oil signifies that love itself, n. 886, 3728, 9780, 9954, 10261, 10269; hence its juice signifies its delight, because the taste is therefrom and the taste is the delight and pleasantness, see n. 3502, 4791-4805. But more may be seen concerning these things in the explanation of chapter 16 of Exodus in Arcana Coelestia.) The reason why the delight of celestial love is signified by eating of the hidden manna, although by the hidden manna the Lord as to the Divine Human is signified, is that it is the same thing whether we say the Divine Human of the Lord, or the Divine love, for the Lord is Divine love itself, and what proceeds from Him is Divine good united to Divine truth; both belong to love, and are also the Lord in heaven. Therefore to eat of Him is to be conjoined to Him, and this is effected by love from Him. (But these things may be better understood from what is said and shown in the work, Heaven and Hell 13-19, 116-125, 126-140; and also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 210-222 and 307.)

4290. In the internal historical sense 'he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me' means that they insisted on being representative, for being insistent is meant by 'I will not let you' and the representative of the Church by 'being blessed'. This particular matter - the insistence of Jacob's descendants that they should be representative of the Church, though they were no more the elect than any other nation - is not very clear, it is true, from the historical narratives of the Word contained in the sense of the letter. It is not clear because those narratives hold the arcana of heaven within them, which accordingly follow one another in a connected sequence, and also because the actual names there are used to mean spiritual realities, many of which names indeed are used in the highest sense to mean the Lord. Examples of these are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who mean in the highest sense the Lord, as has been shown many times in what has gone before; see also 1965, 1989, 2011, 3245, 3305 (end), 3439.

[2] The fact that Jacob's descendants were not the elect, yet they insisted that the Church should have its existence among themselves, may be seen from the internal historical sense in many places in the Word, openly so in the following statements in Moses,

Jehovah said to Moses, Go up from here, you and the people which you made to go up out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it. I will not go up in your midst, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way. When the people heard this bad news, ¹ they mourned and took off every one his ornament from upon him. And Moses took a tent and pitched it for himself outside the camp, far away from the camp. Moses said to Jehovah, See, You say to me, Make this people go up, when You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Now therefore, if, I pray, I have found favour in Your eyes, make known to me, I pray, Your ways, so that I may know of You, that I have found favour in Your eyes. See also that this nation is Your people. He said therefore, My presence will go [with you], until I give you rest. Exodus 33:1, 3-4, 7, 12-14.

In this chapter of Exodus it is said that Moses made the people go up out of Egypt and then that they took off their ornaments and mourned, and that Moses pitched the tent outside the camp and that Jehovah gave His assent. This shows plainly that they themselves were insistent.

[3] In the same author,

Jehovah said to Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will they not believe, for all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will strike them down with pestilence and annihilate them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are. But Moses entreated Jehovah, who being appeased said, I will be gracious according to your word. But yet, I am the living One, and all the earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah; for as for all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the desert, and despite this have tempted Me these ten times and have not obeyed My voice, they will not see the land which I swore to their fathers; all who provoke Me will not see it. In this desert will your bodies fall, but I will bring in your children. Numbers 14[11-13, 20-23, 29, 31].

From these verses also it is evident that Jehovah was willing to annihilate them and therefore not to establish the Church among them, but that they insisted it should be established among them, and therefore it was done. And there were many other occasions besides this when Jehovah would have wiped out that repeatedly rebellious nation but repeatedly He allowed Himself to be appeased by their entreaties.

[4] The same is also implied by the fact that Balaam was not allowed to curse that people, in 22 Chapters, 24 of Numbers; in addition to other places where it is said that Jehovah repented of having brought that people in; also that Jehovah was appeased, as well as that He repeatedly made a new covenant with them. These are the kinds of things that are meant in the internal historical sense by the words 'I will not let you go unless you bless me'. Something similar is also meant by Jacob's taking the birthright from Esau as well as taking the blessing by deceit from him, in Chapters 25, 27 of Genesis.

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