Arcana Coelestia #4786
4786. 'And his father wept for him' means interior mourning. This is clear from the meaning of 'weeping' as the extremity of grief and sadness, and so as interior mourning. In the ancient Churches the external practices by which, internal things were represented included those of wailing and weeping over the dead. Their wailing and weeping meant interior mourning, although their actual mourning was not interior. One reads the following, for example, about the Egyptians who had set out with Joseph to bury Jacob,
When they came to the threshing-floor of Atad which is at the crossing of the Jordan they wailed there with an exceedingly great and grievous wailing, and he mourned for his father seven days. And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians. Genesis 50:10-11.
And one reads about David weeping over Abner,
They buried Abner in Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept. 2 Samuel 3:32.
Zechariah 2
1
I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand.
2
Then I asked, "Where are you going?" He said to me, "To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its breadth and what is its length."
3
Behold, the angel who talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him,
4
and said to him, "Run, speak to this young man, saying, 'Jerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it.
5
For I,' says Yahweh, 'will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her.
6
Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,' says Yahweh; 'for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky,' says Yahweh.
7
'Come, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.'
8
For thus says Yahweh of Armies: 'For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.
9
For, behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they will be a spoil to those who served them; and you will know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me.
10
Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion; for, behold, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of you,' says Yahweh.
11
Many nations shall join themselves to Yahweh in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of you, and you shall know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me to you.
12
Yahweh will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.
13
Be silent, all flesh, before Yahweh; for he has roused himself from his holy habitation!"
