22. Verse 5 And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

What 'evening' means, and what 'morning', is recognized from what is said above. 'Evening' means every prior state, because it is a state of shade, that is, of falsity and of absence of faith, while 'morning' is every subsequent state, because it is one of light, that is, of truth and of cognitions of faith. 'Evening' in general means all the things that are man's own, whereas 'morning' means all those that are the Lord's, as is said through David,

The Spirit of Jehovah has spoken within me, and His word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has said, the Rock of Israel has spoken to me. He is like the morning light, when the sun is rising on a cloudless morning, shining bright, as when after rain tender grass [springs up] from the earth. 2 Samuel 23:4.

Because 'evening' is a time when there is no faith, and 'morning' when there is, the Lord's Coming into the world is called 'the morning', and the time at which He comes, since faith does not exist at that point, is called 'the evening', as in Daniel,

The Holy One said to me, Up to the evening when it is becoming morning, two thousand three hundred times. Daniel 8:13-14.

In the Word, 'morning' stands in a similar way for every coming of the Lord, and so is a term describing the new creation.

4116. 'And crossed the river' means a state in which a joining together takes place. This is clear from the meaning of 'the river', which in this case is the Euphrates, as a joining together, namely a joining to the Divine. The reason 'the river' has this meaning here is that it was the boundary separating the land of Canaan from that region, and all the boundaries of the land of Canaan were representative of and consequently meant spiritually that which came last and yet first - last because that was where it came to an end, and first because it was where it began. For all boundaries are such that they come last for those who are going out of the country but first for those who are coming in. Because Jacob was at that point coming in, that river was the first boundary that he crossed, and so means a joining together - in the highest sense a joining to the Divine; for 'the land of Canaan' in the internal sense means the Lord's heavenly kingdom, 1607, 3481, and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Human, 3038, 3705. From all this one may see what is meant here by 'he crossed the river'. For all things in the land of Canaan were representative, with distances, positions, and boundaries determining their individual representations, see 1585, 3686; thus the rivers which served as boundaries, such as the river of Egypt, the river Euphrates, and the river Jordan, were representative, 1866.