49. Verse 26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ¹ and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

To people in the Most Ancient Church with whom the Lord spoke face to face, the Lord appeared as Man. (Much can be told about those people, but this is not the time to do so.) For this reason they called nobody man except the Lord and whatever may have been His. They did not even call themselves man, but only the things which they perceived that they had from the Lord, such as every good stemming from love and every truth of faith. These things were said to be human because they were the Lord's.

[2] In the Prophets therefore, in the highest sense, 'man' and 'son of man' are used to mean the Lord. In the internal sense they are used to mean wisdom and intelligence, and so everyone who is regenerate, as in Jeremiah,

I looked to the earth, and behold, a void and an emptiness, and towards the heavens, and behold, they had no light. I looked, and behold there was no man; and all the birds of the air ¹ had fled. Jeremiah 4:23, 25.

In Isaiah where in the internal sense 'man' means a regenerate person, the Lord Himself as the One Man is meant in the highest sense,

Thus said Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and He who formed him, It was I that made the earth and it was I that created man upon it; My hands stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. Isaiah 45:11-13

[3] The Lord was therefore seen by the Prophets as Man, for example by Ezekiel,

Above the firmament in appearance like a sapphire stone there was the likeness of a throne, and above the likeness of a throne, there was a likeness, as the appearance of a Man upon it above. Ezekiel 1:26.

And the One whom Daniel saw was called 'a Son of Man', or what amounts to the same, Man,

I looked, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like the Son of Man was coming; and He came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom; and all peoples, nations, and languages will serve Him. His dominion is the dominion of an age, which will not pass away, and His kingdom one that will not perish. Daniel 7:13-14.

[4] Moreover the Lord quite often calls Himself the Son of Man or Man, and, as is done in Daniel, foretells His entry into glory,

They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and glory. Matthew 24:23, 30.

The literal sense of the Word is called 'the clouds of heaven', its internal sense 'power and glory'. The internal sense, in every single detail, focuses exclusively on the Lord and His kingdom. Consequently it is the spiritual sense which contains power and glory.

Footnotes:

4113. 'By not giving him any indication that he was fleeing' means through the separation. This becomes clear without explanation. The statement that 'Jacob stole the heart of Laban the Aramean by not giving any indication that he was fleeing' is used in the historical sense to mean that Jacob deprived Laban of the hope of gaining possession of everything that was his and drove him into a state of dismay. For Laban believed that because Jacob served him everything belonging to Jacob would become his - not only his own daughters, who were Jacob's wives, and his daughters' sons, but also Jacob's flocks, according to the law known and accepted in those times, which is recorded in Moses,

If you buy a Hebrew slave he shall serve you six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If his master has given him a wife and she has borne him sons and daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out by himself. ¹ Exodus 21:2, 4.

The fact that Laban had this law in mind is evident from Jacob's words later on in this chapter,

Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread of Isaac, had been with me, you would now have sent me away empty-handed. Genesis 31:42.

And from Laban's words,

Laban answered and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, and the sons are my sons, and the flock is my flock, and all that you see is mine. Genesis 31:43.

Laban was not taking into consideration the fact that Jacob had not been bought as a slave, nor indeed was a slave, or that he belonged to a more illustrious family than he himself did, or also that Jacob had received his wives as well as the flock as wages. All this being so, that law did not apply to Jacob. Because by his fleeing Jacob now deprived Laban of that hope and as a consequence drove him into a state of dismay it is said that 'he stole the heart of Laban the Aramean by not giving any indication that he was fleeing'. In the internal sense however these words mean a change as regards good of the state meant by 'Laban' through separation. Concerning a change of state effected through separation, see what has been stated just above in 4111.

Footnotes: