This verse uses "man" in a masculine sense, meaning thoughts and ideas in the intellect. Leaving father and mother means leaving the former state of internal spiritual awareness, and cleaving to his wife means being conjoined instead with the external awareness of life. Being one flesh means that the internal of the man and the external of the wife were together as one in life.

The people of the Most Ancient Church wanted to live from themselves. So the Lord created in them the capacity to feel that, though it meant they had to descend from the spiritual awareness they had enjoyed. But they weren't bad people; they still loved the Lord and wished to be good. They just wanted to feel that they were doing it themselves. By having the man cleave to the wife, the Lord allowed the people's higher internal states to enter into their external lives and be part of that sense of self, so they could indeed love the Lord as if from themselves.

(Referenties: Arcana Coelestia 160, 161, 162)

Title: Making the Word Central

Topic: The Word

Summary: Scripture from beginning to end has stories about how the Word and the Lord become central but then we drift off course, and the pattern repeats. Eventually, though, its centrality becomes permanent.

Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.

References:
Genesis 2:9; 3:3; 12:10; 26:1; 41:54; 47:4
Exodus 1:13-14; 2:1-3; 3:1, 12; 13:17-22; 20:18-19; 33:7-11
Numbers 2:2
1 Samuel 7:1-4, 6
1 Chronicles 13:3
Joshua 15:63
2 Samuel 5:4-5
2 Kings 22:8, 11-13; 23:24-25
2 Chronicles 34:14
2 Kings 17:5-6; 24:13-14
Matthew 3:1-6; 11:7-9
Luke 2:40, 52; 3:23
John 4:19; 21:18
Matthew 24:12
Revelation 21:1-3
Matthew 21:42
Psalms 90:1-3
Isaiah 33:20-22