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.

560. THE INTERNAL SENSE

Before one can go any further, reference must be made to the Church as it was before the Flood. In general it went the same way as subsequent Churches, as the Jewish Church before the Lord's Coming and the Christian Church after; that is, people corrupted and adulterated the cognitions of true faith. In particular as regards the member of the Church before the Flood, he conceived dreadful persuasions in the process of time and immersed the goods and truths of faith in filthy desires, to such an extent that scarcely any remnants resided with him. And once they had become such those people suffocated themselves so to speak, for nobody can live without remnants. Indeed, as already stated, it is remnants that make man's life superior to that of animals; it is from remnants, or from the Lord through them, that anyone is enabled to be a human being, to know what good and truth are, and to reflect on individual things, and so to think and to reason. For remnants alone are what contain spiritual and celestial life.