9458. 'Speak to the children of Israel' means the representative Church. This is clear from the representation of 'the children of Israel' as the Church, in particular the spiritual Church, dealt with in 8805, 9340, but at this point the representative Church, since the kinds of objects that represented the holy things of the Church and of heaven are the subject, such as the ark, the mercy-seat, the cherubs, the table on which the loaves of the Presence were laid, the lampstand, and further on the tabernacle, Aaron's garments, and the altar and sacrifices, all of which were representative. The reason why the spiritual Church is meant by 'the children of Israel' is that it was represented by them. However no actual representative Church could be established among that people, only a representative of a Church, see 4281, 4288, 4311, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 9320.

4282. Verses 26-28 And he' said, Let me go, for the dawn is coming up. And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he ¹ said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he' said, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for as a prince you have contended with God and with men, and have prevailed.

'He said, Let me go, for the dawn is coming up' means that the temptation came to an end when the joining together was at hand. 'And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me' means that a joining together was to take place. 'And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob' means the essential nature of good done from truth. 'And he said, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel' means the Divine celestial-spiritual at this point, for 'Israel' is the celestial-spiritual man within the natural, and so is the natural man, whereas the celestial-spiritual man proper - that is, the rational man - is 'Joseph'. 'For as a prince you have contended with God and with men, and have prevailed' means repeated victories in conflicts over truths and goods.

[2] In the internal historical sense in which Jacob and his descendants are the subject the same words have the following meaning: 'Let me go, for the dawn is coming up' means that the genuine representative role would depart from the descendants of Jacob before they entered into the representatives connected with the land of Canaan. 'And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me' means that they insisted on being representative. 'And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob' means that they were the descendants of Jacob - together with their essential nature. 'And he said, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel' means that they could not as [the descendants of] Jacob play the representative part, except by virtue of the new nature that was imparted to them. 'For as a prince you have contended with God and with men, and have prevailed' means on account of the stubborn perverseness which was a product of their evil desires and of false delusions.

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