As with most common verbs, the spiritual meaning of “crying” or “crying out” (meaning a shout or wail, not weeping) is highly dependent on context. Who is crying out? To whom? Why? In most cases, though, crying has to do with speaking falsely, and of the emotions arising from the conflict between truth and falsity. When people cry out in distress it is most often an indication that they are being overwhelmed by false ideas. In other cases – especially regarding more joyful cries – it is a celebration of the triumph of truth.

3508. 'And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' means the effort of the affection for good to acquire the truth that was to be allied to the Divine Rational. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' as the good of the natural, dealt with already, and therefore the affection for the good of the rational within the natural is meant, for the good that is within the natural does not belong to the natural but to the rational within the natural, see 3498; from the meaning of 'going to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' as the effort to acquire truth to itself, for 'the field' is where good ground exists, 3500, 'venison' truth acquired from good, 3501, 'to bring it [home]' to acquire it, and so to ally it to the Divine Rational.

[2] Here, as stated above, the subject in the highest sense is the glorification of the Lord's Natural, and in the representative sense the regeneration of the natural with man, 3490. It is according to order that this is effected by means of truth, that is, by means of cognitions of good and truth, for without these the natural cannot receive light from the rational, that is, by way of the rational, and so be regenerated. Cognitions are vessels for receiving good and truth entering in from the rational. The way in which the vessels receive and the amount they receive determine the nature of their enlightenment and how far they are enlightened. Vessels which receive good and truth from the rational are the truths themselves belonging to the natural, which are no more than facts, cognitions, and matters of doctrine. From the order according to which they flow in and from the order which exists among them there they become goods. This is the origin of the good of the natural.