Here is an excerpt from Swedenborg's "Arcana Coelestia" that helps explain the inner meaning of this chapter:

AC 6497. After treating of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by whom in the supreme sense is represented the Lord, this last chapter of Genesis in the internal sense treats of the church--that after the celestial church had perished, a spiritual church was instituted by the Lord. The beginning and progress of this church are described in the internal sense, and at the close of the chapter, its end; and that in its stead the mere representative of a church was instituted among the descendants of Jacob.