4277. 'And he touched the hollow of his thigh' means where celestial-spiritual good is joined to natural good meant by 'Jacob'. This is clear from the meaning of 'the thigh' as conjugial love, and consequently as all celestial and spiritual love, since these are derived from conjugial love as offspring from their parent, dealt with in 3021; and from the meaning of 'the hollow' or socket or cavity of it - that is to say, of the thigh - as the place where the joining together exists, and here therefore where celestial-spiritual good is joined to natural good meant by 'Jacob'. But no one can be told anything about that conjunction unless he knows first of all what celestial-spiritual good, meant by 'Israel', is, and what natural good, meant by 'Jacob', is. It will be told below at verse 28 where Jacob, who at that point is named Israel, is the subject and also further on where Jacob's descendants are the subject.

6264. 'And behold, God has caused me to see your seed also' means that not only an inflow of love was discerned, but also the goodness and truth springing from it. This is clear from the representation of Manasseh and Ephraim, to whom 'seed' refers here, as good belonging to the will and truth belonging to the understanding, dealt with in 5354, 6222, as well as from the meaning of 'seed' also as goodness and truth, 1610, 2848, 3310, 3373, 7671. And since the words used are 'I did not think to see your face, and behold, God has caused me to see', the meaning is that not only an inflow of love was discerned, but also the goodness and truth springing from it; for 'seeing the face' means an inflow of love, see immediately above in 6263.

2117. THE LAST JUDGEMENT

Few nowadays know what the Last Judgement is. They imagine that it is going to be accompanied by the destruction of the world; and this leads to conjectures that this earth, together with everything else in the visible world, is going to be destroyed by fire. They also conjecture that then for the first time the dead will rise again and appear for judgement, and the evil are to be cast into hell and the good to rise up to heaven. These conjectures are based on the prophetical parts of the Word where references are made to a new heaven and a new earth, and also to a New Jerusalem. Such people do not realize that the prophetical parts of the Word have a meaning altogether different in the internal sense from what appears in the sense of the letter, and that 'heaven' is not used to mean heaven, nor 'the earth' to mean the earth, but the Lord's Church in general, and as it exists with each individual in particular.