5042. 'And showed mercy to him' means Divine love within every individual thing. This is clear from the meaning of 'mercy' in the highest sense as Divine Love, dealt with in 1735, 3063, 3073, 3120, 3875. The Divine Being (Esse) itself is that Love which is meant in the highest sense and is completely beyond human comprehension. Acting by means of truth, that love brings all things into being and keeps them in being, both those which are animate and those which are inanimate. This Divine Love that emanated from that Essential Being (Esse) was flowing through the inmost centre of life within the Lord into every individual thing He did from the human which He had taken to Himself from His mother; it directed His attention towards particular ends, leading on to the final one, which was that the human race might be saved. And because the Lord could see, from the Divine itself present within Him, the essential nature of His human - that owing to its heredity it was steeped in evil - the words 'Jehovah showed mercy to him' are used, meaning in the highest sense the presence of Divine Love within every single thing. Divine mercy (misericordia) is nothing else than Divine Love directed towards those trapped in misery (miseriae), 1099, 3063, 3875, that is, towards those undergoing temptations. For people who undergo temptations dwell in misery, and these primarily are meant in the Word by 'the wretched' (miseri).

1735. That 'blessed be God Most High' means the Lord's Internal Man is clear from what has been stated just above concerning the Internal Man. Jehovah was called 'God Most High' in the Ancient Church for the reason that 'height' represented and therefore meant what is internal, so that 'Most High' meant that which is inmost. This is why the worship of the Ancient Church was celebrated on high places, mountains, and hills. Also, that which is inmost in relation to the exterior and outermost is exactly the same as that which is the most high in relation to lower and lowest. The Most High, or Inmost, is the Celestial element of Love, or Love itself. Jehovah, or the Lord's Internal, was the Celestial element itself of Love, that is, it was Love itself, to which no other attributes are appropriate than those of pure Love and so of pure Mercy towards the whole human race, that Mercy being such that it wills to save all men, to make them eternally happy, and to impart to them all that is its Own - thus out of pure Mercy and by the mighty power of love to draw towards heaven, that is, towards Itself, all who are willing to follow. That Love itself is Jehovah. To Love alone, and to nothing else, is [the substantive verb] Am or Is truly applicable.

[2] From that Love the Being (Esse) of all life is derived, that is, Life itself is derived; for that Being is present within Love and is Love itself. And because Jehovah alone, since He alone is Love, is the Being (Esse) of life, or Life itself, every single thing has its being (esse) and its life from Him. Nor can anyone except Jehovah alone, that is, the Lord alone, be and live from himself. And because no one except the Lord alone can do so, men's seeming to themselves to live from themselves is an illusion of the senses. Angels perceive clearly that they do not live from themselves but from the Lord, since they live in the Being (Esse) of the Lord's life because they abide in His Love. Yet to them more than to all others there is granted, together with indescribable happiness, the appearance of living as if from themselves. This therefore is what is meant by living in the Lord, something that is not possible unless one lives in His Love, that is, in charity towards the neighbour.