5689. 'And he said, God be gracious to you, my son' means that the Divine was also present with the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, because it goes forth from the celestial of the spiritual, which is truth from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'God be gracious - when this is said by the celestial of the spiritual, which is 'Joseph', to the spiritual of the celestial, which is 'Benjamin', and when the latter is also addressed by the former as 'son' - as the Divine presence also with the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, because this goes forth from the celestial of the spiritual, which is truth from the Divine. For 'Benjamin' is the spiritual of the celestial, see 3969, 4592; he is the intermediary too, 5411, 5413, 5443, 5639.

[2] Since, as stated above, the Lord's inner man was the celestial of the spiritual, and this was truth from the Divine or the clothing next to the Divine Himself within the Lord, and since the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, went forth from that, it follows that the Divine was also present with this intermediary. What goes forth from something acquires its essential being from that from which it goes forth; but it is clothed with coverings such as serve to enable communication to take place and thereby enable a useful purpose to be realized in a lower sphere. The coverings that clothe it are derived in part from such things as exist in that lower sphere, to the end that the internal from which it goes forth can operate in the lower sphere through the kinds of things present there.

[3] What provides its essential being is so to speak its father, since that essential being is its soul; and what provides its clothing is its mother, for that clothing is the body belonging to this soul. This is why, as stated above, the intermediary must be derived from both if it is to be an intermediary - from the internal as its father and from the external as its mother.

3314. 'And Rebekah loved Jacob' means that the Divine Truth of the Divine Rational loved the doctrine of truth This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Divine Truth of the Divine Rational, dealt with in 3012, 3013, 3077, and in the whole of the previous chapter where Rebekah is the subject, and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the doctrine of natural truth, and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Natural as regards truth, dealt with in 3305. With regard to the Divine Good of the Rational loving the Good belonging to the Natural, and the Divine Truth of the Divine Rational loving the Truth belonging to the Natural, the position is that there are good and truth that constitute the rational, and there are also good and truth that constitute the natural. The good of the rational flows into the good of the natural both independently of truth, thus into it directly, and also by way of truth, thus into it indirectly. But the good of the rational flows into the truth of the natural both by way of the truth of the rational, thus indirectly, and also by way of the good of the natural, thus again indirectly. Consequently rational good is joined more closely to natural good than to natural truth, a conjunction meant by 'Isaac loved Esau'; and rational truth is joined more closely to natural truth than to natural good, a conjunction meant by 'Rebekah loved Jacob'.

[2] These considerations are such indeed as can be grasped only with great difficulty, in particular because the most general features of all regarding this matter are unknown in the world, even among the learned. The world does not know, for example, that the rational is quite distinct and separate from the natural, or that good and truth are what constitute the rational and what constitute the natural, let alone that the rational flows into the natural enabling a person to think and to will what he thinks. As long as these very general features remain unknown, one can understand only with great difficulty what the influx described above is. Yet these are things in which angels have light, things in which they perceive countless details. And they do this with the delight which is theirs when they are permitted at the same time to think about the Lord's Divine in relation to His Human. Anyone who is governed by good, and who, though still in the body, has what is angelic within him, is also given some light by the Lord in these matters and others like them. But anyone who is not governed by good finds it irksome when he thinks about such matters, the more so when he thinks about those things as they apply to the Divine which belongs to the Lord's Human. It is better therefore if such people turn their minds away from those matters, for they have no grasp of them at all - indeed they reject them, saying at heart, What value is any of this to me? It doesn't bring me any honour, or any material gain.