"Seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, and all these things (which are recounted), shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

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Comparison of the kingdom of God:

1. With the human body from inmosts to outmosts; and therefore concerning that society wherein the Messiah is the Soul, and which shall form one body as one man.

2. With the kindred in the house of Abraham and Nahor.

3. With the land of Canaan and its bordering countries.

4. With the Paradise of Eden.

5. With a marriage and a feast.

[For the above comparisons, see:

(1) n. The Word Explained 596 seq.

(2) n. 567-568.

(3) n. 477 seq.

(4) n. 498 seq.,

(5) n. 586.]

Men are men only so far as they walk in the way of truth. But so far as they turn aside therefrom, they approach to the nature of a beast.

567. Jacob was now called Laban's bone and flesh, and this because he was in that body which was formed by marriages and thus by continual consanguinities. There were two houses, namely, that of Abraham and that of Nahor Abraham's brother. Both houses came from a single house which was that of Terah the father of them both. The house of Abraham was in the land of Canaan; that of Nahor was outside that land in Ur of the Chaldees, Syria of the rivers, or Mesopotamia. In what way the one house had been joined to the other by marriages, namely the house of Abraham to the house which was Nahor's, may be evident from n. 558 above. From the Abrahamic house came the Jacobean and Israelitish house, that is, the Jewish and Israelitish people. Thus they came likewise from the house of Nahor, but only in respect to the daughters of that house who were taken to wife by the sons of the house of Abraham. Thus the two houses coalesced into one, as though into a single body. Hence it is now said to Jacob: Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.