Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3623all the bound ones that were in the prison house” signifies fromhimself over all falsities; “and whatsoever they did there, he was thedoer” signifies absolute power; “the prince of the prison house sawnaught of anything that was in his hand” signifies that he himselfgoverned truth; “because Jehovah was with him” signifies from theDivine which was in him; “and that which he did, Jehovah made itto prosper” signifies that the Divine providence was from himself.5041. And Jehovah was with Joseph. That this signifies that theDivine was in him, that is, in the Lord (who in the supreme sense isrepresented by Joseph), here the Divine in temptations, which arehere treated of, is evident; for the Divine itself is Jehovah; and thathe was in the Lord or within him is signified by “Jehovah was withJoseph.” As in the sense of the letter Joseph is treated of, it is saidwith him; but in the internal sense, where the Lord is treated of, itis in him. That the Divine was in him, may be seen by everyonewithin the church from the fact that he was conceived of Jehovah,for which reason he so frequently calls him his “father.” The verybeing of a man, and hence the inmost of his life is from the father;the clothings or exteriors are from the mother; therefore the Lord’sbeing, and hence the inmost of his life, was Divine, because it wasJehovah himself; and the clothings or exteriors made the humanwhich he took from the mother by birth. This human was suchthat it could be tempted, for it was polluted with hereditary evilfrom the mother; but because the inmost was Divine, he was ableby his own power to cast out that evil heredity from the mother;which was done successively by means of temptations, and finallyby the last, that of the cross, when he fully glorified his human, thatis, made it Divine. From this it may be seen what is meant by thestatement that the Divine was in him.5042. And inclined mercy unto him. That this signifies the Divinelove in everything is evident from the signification of “mercy,” asbeing in the supreme sense the Divine love (see n. 1735, 3063,3073, 3120, 3875). The Divine being itself, understood in thesupreme sense, is love utterly incomprehensible to man; and fromthis love through truth all things come forth and subsist, both thosewhich have life and those which have not. This Divine love fromthe very being through the inmost of life in the Lord flowed into