1990. 'Jehovah appeared to Abram' means manifestation. This is clear without explanation, for, as has been stated, Abram represents the Lord. No human being at all in the whole world has seen Jehovah, the Lord's Father; the Lord alone has done that, as He Himself has stated in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

In the same gospel,

You have never heard His voice nor seen His shape. John 1:37.

And again in the same gospel,

No one has seen the Father except Him who is with the Father, He has seen the Father. John 6:46.

[2] The Infinite itself which stands above all the heavens and above man's inmost being cannot be manifested except by means of the Divine Human, which exists solely with the Lord. Communication of the Infinite with finite beings is not possible at all from any other source. This also explains why, when Jehovah appeared to members of the Most Ancient Church and subsequently to members of the Ancient Church which existed after the Flood, and also after that to Abraham and the prophets, He was manifested to them as a human being. That it was indeed the Lord, He Himself openly teaches in John,

Abraham your father rejoiced to see My day, and saw it and was glad. Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:56, 58.

This is also taught in the Prophets, for example in Daniel who saw Him as 'a son of man', Daniel 7:13.

[3] From these quotations it becomes clear that the Infinite Being (Esse), which is Jehovah, could not possibly be manifested to man except through the Human Essence, that is, through the Lord, and so has not been manifested to anyone except the Lord alone. So that He could be present with and be joined to mankind, after mankind had removed itself entirely from the Divine and had immersed itself in foul desires and so in merely bodily and earthly things, He adopted the Human Essence itself by being born. He did so in order that the Infinite Divine could be joined to man even though man was so remote. Otherwise mankind would have died the death of those for ever damned. As for all the other arcana concerning the manifestation of Jehovah in the Lord's Human, when His state was a state of humiliation, before He had fully united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence and glorified it, these will in the Lord's Divine mercy be explained later on, to the extent that they are capable of being understood.

4564. 'And was buried below Bethel under an oak' means cast away for ever. This is clear from the meaning of 'being buried' as being cast away, for that which is buried is cast away; and from the meaning of 'under an oak' as for ever, dealt with above in 4552. 'Below Bethel' means outside the natural, for that which is said to be beneath or below is in the internal sense outside, 2148; 'Bethel' is the Divine Natural 4089, 4539.

[2] The implication of this is that with a person who is being regenerated, neither hereditary evil nor that of his own doing is removed in such a way as to disappear or be eliminated, but is merely separated and through the rearrangement effected by the Lord is cast away to the most outlying parts, 4551, 4552. It accordingly remains with that person, and does so for ever, but he is withheld from evil by the Lord and maintained in good. When this happens it seems as though evils have been cast away and the person has been purified from them or, as it is said, made righteous. All the angels of heaven confess that in their case, insofar as anything originates in themselves it is entirely evil and consequently false, but insofar as it originates in the Lord it is good and consequently true.

[3] People who have adopted any other notion concerning this matter, and who from the teaching they received while living in the world have become convinced that they have been made righteous and are in that case without sins, and so are holy, are taken back to the state where their evils reigned - both those of their own doing and those received through heredity. They are then kept in that state until they know from personal experience that of themselves they are nothing but evil and the good which had seemed to them to be their own came from the Lord, and that therefore it was not theirs but the Lord's. This is the situation with angels, as it is with the regenerate among men.

[4] But in the Lord's case it was different. He entirely removed, cast out, and cast away from Himself all hereditary evil from His mother, for being conceived from Jehovah He had no evil by heredity from His Father, only from His Mother. This is the difference; and this is what is meant by the Lord's being made Righteousness, the Holy itself, and the Divine.