3185. 'And they blessed Rebekah and said to her' means heartfelt desires resulting from Divine enlightenment. This is clear from the meaning of 'blessing', when bidding farewell to someone who is leaving, as expressing heartfelt desires for their happiness. The fact that here those desires are the result of Divine enlightenment is evident from what follows immediately after and also for the reason that enlightenment flows into the natural man by way of the affection for truth, which is 'Rebekah', when being introduced into good, which is 'Isaac'.

“Washing” in the Bible represents purification - unsurprisingly! Washing dirt from the skin symbolizes using true ideas from the Lord to remove evil desires and false ideas from our minds. This is the reason that washing was such an integral part of ritual; cleaning the body to perform physical acts of worship - something with no actual spiritual value - is symbolic of repenting our evils and falsities as part of worshiping the Lord.