3194. 'Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi' means Divine Rational Good born from Divine Truth itself. This is clear from the representation of 'Isaac' as the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 2083, 2630, here as regards Divine Good there since Divine truth, represented by Rebekah, had not yet been summoned out of the natural and joined to it - that joining together being the subject in what follows now; and from the meaning of 'coming from Beer Lahai Roi' as born from Divine Truth. In the original language Beer Lahai Roi means The spring of the Living One who sees me, as above in Genesis 16:13-14, where one reads,

Hagar called the name of Jehovah who spoke to her, You are a God who sees me; for she said, Have I not also here seen after Him who sees me? Therefore she called the spring, Beer Lahai Roi (The spring of the Living One who sees me).

For the meaning of these two verses, see 1952-1958, where also it is evident that 'a spring' means Divine Truth, and that 'the Living One who sees me' means Divine Rational Good, which is there called the Lord's Interior man, springing from Divine Truth. The substance of this very deep arcanum is that Good and Truth belong essentially to the Divine itself; but the Lord's Divine Human came into existence from Divine Good, and was born from Divine Truth. Or what amounts to the same, the Lord's Essential Being (Esse) was Divine Good, and the Manifestation (Existere) of Him was Divine Truth. This was the origin of the Lord's Divine Rational Good to which He joined Divine Truth from the Human.

30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.

[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.

[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.