Arcana Coelestia # 4786
4786. 'And his father wept for him' means interior mourning. This is clear from the meaning of 'weeping' as the extremity of grief and sadness, and so as interior mourning. In the ancient Churches the external practices by which, internal things were represented included those of wailing and weeping over the dead. Their wailing and weeping meant interior mourning, although their actual mourning was not interior. One reads the following, for example, about the Egyptians who had set out with Joseph to bury Jacob,
When they came to the threshing-floor of Atad which is at the crossing of the Jordan they wailed there with an exceedingly great and grievous wailing, and he mourned for his father seven days. And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians. Genesis 50:10-11.
And one reads about David weeping over Abner,
They buried Abner in Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept. 2 Samuel 3:32.
Ezekiel 16:16-18
16
You took of your garments, and made for yourselves high places decked with various colors, and played the prostitute on them: [the like things] shall not come, neither shall it be [so].
17
You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and played the prostitute with them;
18
and you took your embroidered garments, and covered them, and did set my oil and my incense before them.
