2498. THE INTERNAL SENSE

That these historical matters, like all the other things of the Word, involve Divine arcana, is evident from the fact that Abraham now again said that his wife was his sister; for the same thing had occurred when he came into Egypt; for he then said to Sarah, “Say, I pray, thou art my sister” (Genesis 12:13). And not Abraham alone, but Isaac likewise, when he came to Gerar, said that his wife Rebecca was his sister: “The men of that place asked concerning his wife, and he said, She is my sister” (Genesis 26:6-7; and there are other things in the same chapters that resemble each other, so that such historical matters are related three times; which, without a hidden cause in the internal sense, would by no means have been done.