153. It is said that the rib was built into a woman, and not as previously, when regeneration was the subject, that the woman was created, or formed, or made. The word 'built' is used because building means reconstructing that which has fallen down. This is how it is used in the Word, where 'building' has reference to evils, 'raising up' to falsities, and 'renewing' to both, as in Isaiah,

They will build up the waste places of old, they will raise up the former desolations, and they will renew the waste cities, the desolations of generation upon generation. Isaiah 61:4.

'Waste places' here and elsewhere stands for evils, 'desolations' for falsities. The expression 'to build' is applied to the former, 'to raise up' to the latter, and this distinction is also carefully observed in other places in the Prophets: in Jeremiah,

Again I will build you, that you may be built, O virgin of Israel. Jeremiah 31:4.

1962. Verse 16 And Abram was a son of eighty-six years when Hagar bore Ishmael for Abram.

'Abram was a son of eighty-six years' means the Lord's state as regards celestial goods acquired through conflicts brought about by temptations. 'When Hagar bore Ishmael for Abram' means when the life belonging to the affection for knowledge gave birth to the rational.