8983. 'The woman and her children shall be her master's' means that the good attached by the spiritual to truth, and the truths and the forms of good derived from that good, must not be assigned to truth as its own. This is clear from the meaning of 'the woman' as spiritual good attached to truth during conflict, dealt with above in 8981; from the meaning of 'the children' as derived truths and forms of good, dealt with immediately above in 8982; and from the meaning of 'shall be her master's' as that they must belong to the spiritual from which they spring, and not to truth. For 'the master' is the spiritual, 8981, and 'the slave' is truth without complementary good, 8974, which is why those things must not be assigned to this truth. 'Man and woman' in the internal sense means good and truth joined together; for marriage on earth represents the heavenly marriage, which is that of good and truth, and also conjugial love corresponds to this marriage, 2727-2759, 2803.

[2] But between a slave and a woman provided by his master there is no marriage, only a coupling together like that of man and concubine; and this coupling does not correspond to the heavenly marriage. Therefore also it is dissolved when the slave goes out; for then the woman and children become the master's. The reason why their relationship is only a coupling is that the truth represented by 'the slave' exists in the external man, while the good represented by 'the woman' exists in the internal man; and the good belonging to the internal man cannot be joined to the truth belonging to the external man unless a joining together has taken place first in the internal man. Till then they cannot be joined together because the slave represents the merely external man, which does not possess compatible good and cannot have such assigned to it. What has been stated about human regeneration in 3321, 3469, 3493, 3573, 3616, 3882, 4353, shows how impossible it is for the good of the internal man to be joined to the truth of the external man unless a joining together has taken place first in the internal man; for regeneration involves the joining together of goodness and truth.

3321. 'For I am weary' means a state of conflict. This is clear from the meaning of 'weary' or weariness as a state of conflict, dealt with above in 3318. A second reference occurs here to his being weary so as to confirm the point that the joining together of good and truth within the natural is effected by means of spiritual conflicts, that is, by means of temptations. With regard to the joining together of good and truth in the natural, the position in general is that man's rational receives truths before his natural receives them, the reason being that the Lord's life which, as has been stated, is the life of His love, may be able to flow in by way of the rational into the natural, bring order into it, and make it submissive. For the rational is purer, and the natural grosser, or what amounts to the same, the former is interior, the latter exterior. It is according to order - an order that one can know - that the rational is able to flow into the natural, but not the natural into the rational.

[2] Consequently a person's rational is able to be adjusted to truths and to receive them before the natural does. This becomes quite clear from the fact that the rational man with someone who is to be regenerated conflicts greatly with the natural, or what amounts to the same, the internal man does so with the external. For as is also well known, the internal man is able to see truths and also to will them, but the external man refuses to see them and stands opposed to them. For in the natural man there are facts, which are to a great extent derived from the illusions of the senses, and which, although they are falsities, he nevertheless believes to be truths. There are also countless things which the natural man does not grasp, since the natural man, compared with the rational man, is in shade and thick darkness; and the things which the natural man does not grasp are thought not to exist or not to be so. There are also desires in the natural man which are those of self-love and love of the world, and the things which support those desires he calls truths. And when a person gives in to them everything that arises from them is contrary to spiritual truths. Present also are reasonings derived from falsities imprinted since early childhood. What is more, a person comprehends plainly with his senses the things which exist in his natural man, but less so those which exist in his rational until he has shed the body. This also causes him to suppose that the natural constitutes the whole, and what does not fall within the compass of his natural senses he believes to be scarcely anything.

[3] These and many others are the factors which cause the natural man to receive truths much later and with greater difficulty than the rational man receives them. Consequently conflict occurs, which persists for rather a long time and does not end until the recipient vessels of good in the natural man have been softened by means of temptations, as shown above in 3318; for truths are nothing else than recipient vessels of good, 1496, 1832, 1900, 2063, 2261, 2269. The harder those vessels are the more firmly is a person settled in the things referred to above. And the more firmly settled he is, the more serious is the conflict if he is to be regenerated. This therefore being the situation with the natural man - that the joining of truths to good in the natural man is effected by means of the conflicts brought about by temptations - Esau's statement 'I am weary' occurs a second time here.