AC 4121 - 'Brothers'; AC 4122 - 'And Pursued Him'

 AC 4121 [1-2]

In the internal sense 'brothers'
means people who are governed by
the same kind of goodness and truth,
that is, they share the same affection for these.
Indeed all in the next life
are grouped together in different communities
on the basis of their affections;
and those so grouped together in any community
constitute a brotherhood.
They do so
not because they call themselves brothers
but because they are such
through their being joined to one another.
In the next life it is goodness and truth
that lie behind that which on earth is called
a blood-relationship and a relationship by marriage,
and for this reason
the latter correspond to that goodness and truth.
Indeed regarded in themselves
forms of goodness and truth
acknowledge no other father than the Lord,
for they exist from Him alone,
and therefore all who are governed by
forms of goodness and truth
exist in a brotherly relationship with one another.
Yet degrees of affinity exist,
determined by the particular nature
of each form of goodness or truth.
In the Word these degrees are meant by
brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters- in-law,
grandsons, granddaughters,
and many other names for relatives in a family.

On earth however
these names are given to people
because they have the same parents,
no matter how much these people
differ from one another in affection.
But that kind of brotherly relationship and affinity
is dissolved in the next life,
and unless on earth
they have been governed by the same affection
they all enter different brotherly relationships.

AC 4122

'And pursued him'
(Genesis 31: 23)
means a continuing intense desire to be joined.
This is clear from the meaning here of 'pursuing'
as a continuing intense desire to be joined.
The subject at this point in the internal sense
is the separation of
intermediate good from genuine good
after intermediate good had served its use.
A full description of the process of separation
is what the internal sense contains here.
Yet the process is such
that not even the existence of it
is perceptible to man,
but to angels it is seen quite clearly,
including its countless variations.
Thus they see and perceive in one
who is being regenerated
and with whom they are present as servants
all the changes of state he undergoes.
And in accordance with those changes,
and by means of them, the Lord
enables those angels to lead him towards good,
insofar as he allows himself to be led.
It is because that process
serves so great a use in heaven
that it is dealt with so extensively here.
It also shows the nature of the internal sense -
that it is the angelic Word.