24. Verse 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

After the Spirit of God, which is the Lord's mercy, has brought out into the daylight cognitions of truth and good, and has shed the light of dawn to reveal that the Lord does exist, and that He is good itself and truth itself, and that no good or truth exists except from the Lord, a distinction is at that point made between the internal man and the external man, and so between cognitions which reside with the internal man and the facts which belong to the external man. The internal man is called 'an expanse, and the cognitions residing with the internal man are called 'the waters above the expanse', while the facts belonging to the external man are called 'the waters below the expanse'.

[2] Until his regeneration starts a person is not aware of even the existence of the internal man, let alone the identity of the internal man. Submerged in bodily and worldly concerns he imagines there is no difference between the two. Furthermore he has submerged in those same concerns the things that belong to the internal man and has made one thorough obscurity out of things that are distinct and separate. For this reason it is first said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters', and then, 'Let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters', and not a distinguishing of the waters. But this is followed immediately by the statement, Verses 7-8, And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.

[3] The second thing therefore that a person notices when being regenerated is that he is starting to become aware of the existence of the internal man, or that what reside in the internal man are goods and truths which are the Lord's alone. And since the external man during regeneration is such as still imagines that he is the source of the good deeds he performs, or of the truth he utters, and since such a person, by means of them, is led by the Lord to do good and to speak truth as if they were his own, therefore the identification of those under the expanse comes first, and the identification of those above the expanse follows. It is also a heavenly arcanum that the Lord uses those things that are man's own - both his illusions of the senses and his desires - to lead and direct him towards the things that are goods and truths. Every single movement of regeneration is accordingly a progression from evening to morning - from external man to internal, that is, from earth to heaven. This is why the expanse, or internal man, is now called 'heaven'.

Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to meet Esau, and the angel tells him that his name will be changed. After he is reconciled with Esau, they go their separate ways. Jacob moves to Shechem and then on to Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. The Lord appears to him there, renews the covenant He first made with Abraham and again tells him that his name will be Israel (Genesis 35). The story goes on to tell of Benjamin's birth and Rachel's death in bearing him, and then of Jacob's return to Isaac and Isaac's death and burial. But at that point the main thread of the story leaves Israel and turns to Joseph, and Israel is hardly mentioned until after Joseph has risen to power in Egypt, has revealed himself to his brothers and tells them to bring all of their father's household down to Egypt. There, before Israel dies, he blesses Joseph's sons, plus all his own sons. After his death he is returned to the land of Canaan for burial in Abraham's tomb. In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob represents truth, and Esau good. Jacob's stay in Padan-Aram, and the wealth he acquired there, represent learning the truths of scripture, just as we learn when we read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The change of name from Jacob to Israel represents the realization that what we learn should not simply be knowledge, but should be the rules of our life, to be followed by action. This action is the good that Esau has represented in the story up to that time, but after the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau, Jacob as Israel now represents the truth and the good, together. It is interesting that even after his name change Jacob is rarely called Israel. Sometimes he is called one and sometimes the other, and sometimes he is called both Jacob and Israel in the same verse (Genesis 46:2, 5, & 8 also Psalm 14:7). This is because Jacob represents the external person and Israel the internal person, and even after the internal person comes into being, we spend much of our lives living on the external level.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 4274, 4292, 4570, 5595, 6225, 6256, Genesis 2:5, 46:8)