6229. 'God Shaddai showed Himself to me in Luz in the land of Canaan' means the Divine appearing within the natural in a previous state. This is clear from the meaning of 'God Shaddai' as the Divine, for He who was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was called Shaddai, 3667, 5628, and was Jehovah Himself or the Lord, thus the Divine, as may be seen from Genesis 28:13, 19; from the meaning of 'showed Himself to me' as the fact that He appeared; from the meaning of 'Luz' as the natural in a previous state, dealt with in 4556; and from the meaning of 'the land of Canaan' as the Church, dealt with before. From all this it is evident that 'God Shaddai showed Himself to me in Luz in the land of Canaan' means the Divine appearing within the natural where the spiritual Church's truth existed.

2559. 'It happened, when God caused me to depart from my father's house' means when He left behind factual knowledge and the appearances that arise from this, together with their delights, meant here by 'father's house'. This is clear from the meaning of 'departing' as leaving behind, and from the meaning of 'house' as good, 2233, here the good that consists in the delight received from the appearances that go with factual knowledge and rational concepts, for all delight appears as good. The reason 'father's house' here means the delights received from factual knowledge and rational concepts, and therefore from the appearances that go with these, is that they are spoken of in reference to Abraham when he departed from his father's house, for at that time, together with his father's house, Abraham worshipped other gods; see 1356, 1992. This explains why the verb in the clause God caused me to depart is plural. This clause, as is also in keeping with the original language, could be rendered, the gods caused me to wander, but because the Lord is represented by Abraham it must be rendered, 'God caused me to depart'. Now it is because the factual knowledge that existed initially with the Lord, and also the rational concepts formed from that knowledge, were human - steeped as they were in what had been inherited from the mother - and so were not purely Divine, that they are represented by 'Abraham's' first state. But how far representations go, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 1992.