The celestial people of the Most Ancient Church, motivated by the love of the Lord, were in a constant state of sensing the separation between their internals and their externals. They could be externally involved with the necessities of life – gathering and preparing food, caring for children, caring for each other – while deep in their minds being constantly aware of the Lord, and of angels, and of the spiritual value of even the external things they were doing. But to give them the sense that life was their own, the Lord had to emphasize their externals and give them the leading role. So the people lost their constant awareness of spiritual things.

That is represented here. "Bone of my bones" means that the dead, hellish sense of self in external life was linked to the same thing in internal life. "Flesh of my flesh" means the living, heavenly sense of self in externals is also linked to internals. "Woman" means the sense of self as a complete state of life, and "man" – used in a specifically masculine sense here – means intellectual thoughts and concepts in the internal man. So at all levels, the external sense that life was their own took dominance in the people of the Most Ancient Church.

(Референци: Arcana Coelestia 156, 0157, 158, 159)

433. 'Cain's being avenged sevenfold' means that it was utterly forbidden to violate separated faith meant by Cain. See what has been shown at verse 15. 'Seventy-sevenfold' means that it was something even more inviolable on account of which condemnation follows the number seven is a holy number is that the seventh day means the celestial man, the celestial Church, the celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself. Consequently whenever the number seven occurs in the Word it means that which is holy or utterly inviolable. And this holiness or inviolability has reference to, or else is determined by, the subject being dealt with. The same applies to the meaning of the number seventy consisting of seven ages (saecule), ¹ for in the Word an age (saeculum) is a span of ten years. When anything extremely holy or utterly inviolable needed to be expressed people used the phrase 'seventy-sevenfold', as the Lord did, when He said that people were to forgive their brother not seven times but seventy times seven, Matthew 18:21-22. By this He meant that they were to forgive as often as he sinned. Their forgiveness was to know no limits, that is, was to be eternal and timeless, which is holy. In the present instance his being avenged seventy-sevenfold means condemnation, for it was utterly and completely forbidden to violate.

Фусноти: