Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. IV (1750)

To be held for a long time in a certain intermediate good—namely, a good that participates as much in the affections of the world as in the affections of heaven—is necessary. Unless one is held in that intermediate good, one cannot admit heavenly goods and truths. That intermediate good is what is signified by Laban and his flock. But a person is not held in that intermediate good any longer than until it has served its purpose; once it has served its purpose, it is separated. This chapter deals with that separation.

That there is an intermediate good, and that it is separated once it has served its purpose, can be illustrated by the changes of state that every person undergoes from infancy to old age. It is known that a person’s state in infancy is one thing, in childhood another, in youth another, in adulthood another, and in old age another. It is also known that a person sheds the state of infancy with its toys when moving into the state of childhood, and sheds the state of childhood when moving into the state of youth, and this again when moving into the state of adulthood, and finally this when moving into the state of old age. And if one examines it, one can also see that every age has its own pleasures, and that through these pleasures one is successively introduced into those things that belong to the next age, and that those pleasures have served one in reaching that point, and finally in reaching the pleasure of intelligence and wisdom in old age. From this, it is evident that earlier states are always left behind when a new state of life is assumed.

However, this comparison only serves to show that there are intermediate pleasures and that they are left behind when a person enters a subsequent state. But when a person is regenerated, their state becomes entirely different from the prior one, to which they are led not in a natural way, but in a supernatural way by the Lord. And no one arrives at that state except through the means of regeneration, which are provided by the Lord alone, thus through the intermediate good that has been discussed. And when one has been led to that state—so that they no longer have worldly, earthly, and bodily things as their goal, but the things of heaven—then that intermediate good is separated. To have something as a goal is to love one thing above another.

4064. "Jacob took all that was our father's," signifies that all the goods understood by Jacob were given to him from there, namely from that intermediate good. This is evident without explanation. But that they were not given to him from there is clear from what follows; it was Laban’s sons who said it.

4065. "And from that which was our father’s he made all this wealth," signifies that He gave it to Himself. This is clear from the signification of "making wealth," which is to give to oneself. For in the supreme sense, it is predicated of the Lord, who never took any good or truth from another, but from Himself. It is true that another good had served Him as an intermediate, one that also had a relationship with the maternal, for Laban—by whom that good is signified—was the brother of Rebekah, who was Jacob's mother. But through that intermediate, He procured for Himself the things by which He made His Natural Divine by His own power. It is one thing to procure something for oneself from an intermediate, and another through an intermediate. He procured it through an intermediate because He was born a human and inherited from the mother what had to be cast off, but not from an intermediate, because He was conceived by Jehovah, from whom He had the Divine. Therefore, He gave to Himself all goods original: "sumsit Jacob omnia quae patri nostro... Ipse sibi daret... a Semet Ipso"