1101. May God enlarge Japheth, signifies the enlightenment of this church. In the literal sense “to enlarge” is to extend the boundaries, but in the internal sense it is to be enlightened; for enlightenment is the enlargement, as it were, of the boundaries of wisdom and intelligence. As in Isaiah:

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations (Isaiah 54:2),

meaning enlightenment in spiritual things. The man of the external church is “enlarged” when he is instructed in the truths and goods of faith; and as he is in charity, he is thereby more and more confirmed; and besides, the more he is instructed, the more is the cloud of his intellectual part dispersed—of that intellectual part, that is to say, in which are charity and conscience.