568. Since the Messiah is here meant by Jacob, therefore, from what has been said, it can now be perceived how it could here be said by Laban, Thou art my bone and my flesh. The Messiah was in both houses, Abraham's and Nahor's, as in his own; for he was to arise from both and he willed to form his body from both, that is, the society which should be like his body; and this by marriages and the relationships and affinities from the closest to the more remote, that arise therefrom. The case is exactly the same as with societies which are descended from a single house, here the house of Terah, and which, like the latter, are repeatedly joined together by marriages. By copulations of this kind, they would thus all have relation to Him or to his marriage with the church, and this in the least things as in the greatest; for to the existence of a single and unanimous body the least must be like the greatest, yet with infinite variety, as in the case of the body. This then is the reason why all in both houses could stand for or represent the Messiah, those in the Abrahamic house representing him as husband, and those, that is, the women, in the house of Nahor representing him as his bride or church; for the Abrahamic house took their wives from the house of Nahor and brought them to the land of Canaan. But these matters must be further treated of, namely, as to how the peoples and nations in Nahor's house, who were to form this body, also represent the Messiah. Such then being the relationship between the individuals in these two houses, it may be evident how the following words can be said principally of the Messiah: Thou art my bone and my flesh; for he is the soul and life of that body, and consequently is the body itself, a body not being a body without life since it is from life that it receives its name body. It is from life that every action of the muscles and motor fibres springs; without life in these, there would be no action. Thus, as the instrumental is wont to be denominated from its principal, so also the principal is denominated from its instrumental; and therefore it is said of the Messiah, Thou art my bone and my flesh.
