Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. IV (1750)

...to him, for he sold us, and has even consumed our silver? For all the riches which God has snatched from our father are ours and our children's; and now, whatever God has said to you, do." "Rachel and Leah answered and said to him" signifies the reciprocal of the affections of truth. "Is there any longer a portion and inheritance for us in our father's house?" signifies the first state of their separation from the good signified by Laban. "Are we not esteemed as strangers to him, because he sold us?" signifies that he had alienated them, so that they were no longer his. "And he has even consumed our silver" signifies that he would consume the truth of their affections if they were not separated. "For all the riches which God has snatched from our father are ours and our children's" signifies that all things are from one's own power, and nothing is given by another, by influx from His Divine into that which He would receive from it. "And now, whatever God has said to you, do" signifies the Lord's Providence.

4096. "Rachel and Leah answered, and said to him," that this signifies the reciprocal of the affections of truth, is evident from the signification of "answering" when there is assent, which becomes a reciprocal act, concerning which see n. 2919, and that it becomes a reception, n. 2941, 2957; and from the representation of Rachel, that she is the affection of interior truth, and of Leah, that she is the affection of exterior truth, concerning which see n. 3758, 3782, 3793, 3819. In what precedes, it has been treated in the internal sense of the natural good, which is signified by Jacob, when it was being separated from the intermediate good, which is Laban—how that good, namely the natural good, would adjoin to itself the affections of truth, which are signified by Rachel and Leah. It is now treated of the reciprocal application of the affections of truth to good. This application is contained in the internal sense of the words which Rachel and Leah now say. But these things are such that they do not fall into the understanding except that of one who has been instructed and who perceives enjoyment in the knowledge of such things—thus one who has spiritual knowledges as his end. Others do not care for such things and cannot direct their minds so far. For those who have worldly and earthly things as their end cannot withdraw their senses from them, and if they were to withdraw them, they would perceive it as unpleasant, for then they would depart and remove themselves from those things which they have as their end, that is, which they love. Let everyone who is such test himself: whether he wants to know how good adjoins itself to the affections of truth, and how the affections of truth apply themselves, and whether knowing this is burdensome to him, and whether he would say that such things do not profit him, and that he grasps nothing of them. Yet if such things are told to him that are of his business in the world—even though they are most recondite—as well as what another is like in regard to his affections, and how he can adjoin that person to himself by applying himself in mind and words, he not only grasps it but also perceives interiorly. Similarly, he who strives to investigate the abstruse things of science from affection loves to contemplate things more intricate than these, and also does contemplate them. But when it is a matter of spiritual good and truth, he feels weariness and even aversion. These things have been said so that it may be known what kind of person the Church is today. But how it is with good when it adjoins to itself truths through affections, and with truths when they apply themselves, cannot be so evident when the idea or thought is held in good and in truth, but better when in the societies of spirits and angels through which they flow, for as it was said in n. 4067, man’s willing and thinking comes from there...