The Lord is life itself. We are recipients of life. We give life unique forms because of our unique shapes as receptacles, and through free will we can choose how fully we will receive life. But we don't have life of our own. It follows from this that the more we turn toward the Lord and receive life, the more alive we will be; and the more we turn away the more dead we will be. It also follows that believing life is our own – with all the loves, the thoughts and the power that entails – is actually the antithesis of life.

This is the state of those in the deepest hells, who reject everything of the Lord, even His existence, and claim all life as their own. They are, in fact, only alive because the Lord forces life on them in the amount necessary to sustain existence.

This is, in a sense, what is represented by the rib – which is human, and is alive, but only in the most limited way. When the people of the Most Ancient Church (Adam) wanted to lead themselves and sense life as their own, the Lord had to use that most dead aspect of them to grant their wish. He had to use that bone, which represents our most hellish potential, what we would be if we were to reject the Lord completely.

But then the Lord did something miraculous. He turned that bone into living flesh, into a new person: the woman Eve. This represents that the Lord built that most dead, most hellish aspect of us up into something which felt life as its own, but could acknowledge that life actually came from the Lord, and could thus again be a recipient of life. It wasn't quite as pure as before; people could no longer commune directly with the Lord. But they had what they wanted instead: a sense of self.

The Writings call this – both the rib and the woman – by the Latin word proprium, essentially meaning "as of self." The rib represents the proprium on its own, which is hellish. The woman represents the proprium given life by the Lord.

(റഫറൻസുകൾ: Arcana Coelestia 151, 152, 153, 154, 155)

3599. 'And Isaac his father answered, and said to him' means a perception that natural good would be made Divine. This is clear from the representation of 'Isaac' as the Lord's Divine Rational as regards the Divine Good there, dealt with in 3012, 3194, 3210, from the meaning, in historical descriptions in the Word, of 'laying' as perceiving, often dealt with already, and from the representation of 'Esau', to whom Isaac addressed these words, as Natural good, also dealt with many times above. That it would be made Divine is clear from the blessing which is the subject in what follows. It has been stated above that 'Esau' represents the Lord's Divine Natural as regards Divine Good, and 'Jacob' His Divine Natural as regards Divine Truth; but here 'Esau' represents Natural good that was to be made Divine, and in the verses prior to this 'Jacob' has represented Natural truth which too was to be made Divine. The implications of all this may become clear from what has been stated above in 3494, 3576. Yet to make the matter clearer still let a further brief statement be made about it here.

[2] Natural good, which Esau represents at first, is the Lord's Natural when He was a young child. This was Divine from the Father but human from the mother; and to the extent it was from the mother it was steeped in hereditary evil Its nature being such it was not able instantly to exist within that kind of order in which it could receive the Divine that was present inmostly, but it had first of all to be brought into order by the Lord. It is similar with the truth which Jacob represents; for where good is, so must truth be if it is to be anything at all. The whole area of thought, where truth resides, is joined to the area of will, where good resides. This is so even with young children. Once therefore the Lord had brought into order the Natural as regards Good and as regards Truth within Himself - into the kind of order in which the Natural received the Divine, so that He Himself was flowing in from His own Divine - and once He had gradually driven out everything human received from the mother, 'Esau' at that point represents the Lord's Divine Natural as regards Good, and 'Jacob' His Divine Natural as regards Truth.

[3] But Esau and Jacob represent the Divine Good and the Divine Truth of the Lord's Divine Natural when they have been joined together as brothers. Regarded in themselves Divine Good and Divine Truth are a single power working together to give form to and to receive good and truth that are put into practice. The latter, that is to say, good and truth put into practice, are dealt with later on. These considerations show how many are the arcana contained in the internal sense of the Word. Those arcana are such that not even the most general aspects of them are intelligible to man, as is the case perhaps with those that have just been referred to. How then [can he grasp] the countless specific details regarding them? But they are suited to the grasp and understanding of angels who gain from the Lord heavenly ideas concerning these things and others like them, which ideas are enlightened by representatives full of indescribable pleasantness and bliss. From this one can have an idea of what angelic wisdom is like, yet only a remote idea of it because such things remain in the unenlightened part of man's understanding.