9571. 'And give light before its faces' means from the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'giving light' as the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good, for this is what gives light to heaven and the angels themselves there, and also to the Church and the people in it whose faith is founded on good (the resulting enlightenment is enlightenment of the mind, from which comes intelligence and wisdom in the truths and forms of the good of faith; the mind receives light through the Word because the Word is Divine Truth from the Lord); and from the meaning of 'faces', when this word has reference to the Lord, as all that which springs from the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Love, dealt with in 9545, 9546. It springs from the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Human because the Lord's Divine Human is the source of the light in heaven; for His Human is heaven's Sun from which the light flows, and the light from there is Divine Truth, see 1053, 1521-1533, 1619-1632, 2776, 3094, 3138, 3167, 3190, 3195, 3222, 3223, 3337, 3339, 3341, 3636, 3643, 3862, 3993, 4060, 4180, 4302, 4408, 4414, 4415, 4419, 4527, 4598, 5400, 6032, 6313, 6315, 6608, 6907, 7174, 8644, 8707, 8861, 9399, 9407. Also the Lord is the Sun of heaven, 1053, 1521, 1529-1531, 2441, 3636, 3643, 4321 (end), 5097, 7078, 7083, 7171, 7173, 8644, 8812. The Lord's Divine Human is the source of the light in heaven because the Divine cannot be seen except under a Human form, which moreover the Lord has taught in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

And in the same gospel,

You have never heard the Father's voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

4598. 'Israel travelled on' means the celestial-spiritual of the natural then. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling on' as a further stage or a continuation, dealt with in 4375, 4554, in this case towards aspects more interior still, and from the representation of 'Israel' here as the celestial-spiritual of the natural, dealt with in 4286. What the celestial-spiritual of the natural is has been explained already, namely the good of truth, or the good of charity arrived at through the truth of faith. Little knowledge exists in the world of what an advance towards more interior aspects is. It is not an advance into knowledge of facts, for that kind of advance is often made without any advancement towards interior things, and more often still is accompanied by a movement away from these. Neither is it an advance in maturity of judgement, for this too is sometimes accompanied by a movement away from interior things. Nor yet is it an advance made into cognitions of interior truth, for these count for nothing if a person does not have any affection for them. An advance towards interior things is an advance nearer to heaven and the Lord made by means of the cognitions of truth which have been implanted in an affection for them, and so is an advance made by means of the affections.

[2] What an advance towards interior things is like is not apparent to anyone in the world; but in the next life it is plain to see. In that life it is an advance out of a kind of haze into light; for compared with others people who are concerned solely with more external things live in a haze, and are also seen by the angels to do so, whereas those who have a concern for more internal things dwell in light, and consequently in wisdom since the light there is wisdom. And what is amazing, those living in the haze cannot see that those in light are in light, whereas those dwelling in light can see that those in the haze are in a haze. Since the subject is the advance made by the Lord's Divine towards more interior aspects, Jacob is called Israel here; but where that advance is not the subject he is called Jacob, as in verse 20 immediately before this, and in the final verse of this chapter.