3161. 'Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as Jehovah has spoken' means consent inspired from the Lord. This too could be shown by an explanation of all the individual words, the general import of these in the internal sense being the meaning that has just been stated. The implications are as follows: When the Lord lived in the world He made the Human within Himself Divine by His own power, the human with everyone having its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, 2106, 2194. This verse describes how He made it Divine, that is to say, already so as of good and of truth. The good there came from His essential Divinity, that is, from Jehovah the Father from whom He had been conceived; but the truth there had to be acquired by the ordinary way, as with every other human being.

[2] It is well known that nobody is born rational but merely into the ability to become so, and that he becomes rational by means of factual knowledge, that is to say, by means of cognitions which divide up into many genera and species, the first of which are the means leading on to those next to them, and so on in order to the last of all which are cognitions of the spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom and are called matters of doctrine. These latter cognitions are learned in part from the doctrine of faith, in part directly from the Word, and in part therefore by a person's own efforts, as is also well known. As long as these matters of doctrine remain solely in the memory they are merely factual truths and have not as yet been made over to the individual as his own. They first become made over to him when he starts to love them for the sake of life, and more so when he applies them to life. When this happens truths are raised up from the natural memory into the rational part of the mind and are there joined to good. And when they have been joined they are no longer matters of knowledge but of life, for in that case a person is no longer learning from truths how to live but actually living by them. In this way truths come to be his own and become matters of the will. He accordingly enters the heavenly marriage, for the heavenly marriage consists in good and truth joined together in the rational. With men these things are accomplished by the Lord.

[3] But in Himself the Lord did this by Himself, unaided. From the Divine itself He not only begot the Rational as regards Good, but also through this the Natural as regards Truth, which He joined to Good. For it is good that chooses truth for itself and also gives form to it, for good acknowledges nothing else as truth but that which is compatible with it. Thus Divine good that was the Lord's moulded Truth for itself. Nor did it acknowledge as Truth anything else than that which would be compatible with Divine Good, that is, which would be Divine of Itself. Thus He achieved every single thing by His own power. These are the things that are meant by 'acknowledgement that it was the Lord's alone' and by 'consent inspired from the Lord'.

2190. 'And he said, Behold, in the tent' means that it existed within holiness. This is clear from the meaning of 'a tent' as holiness, dealt with in 414, 1102, 1566, 2145. Rational truth is said to have existed within holiness because it existed within good. All good is called holy because it is an attribute of love and charity, which are derived wholly from the Lord. But as are forms of good, so are forms of holiness. Goods are formed, that is, they are born and develop, through the truths of faith. The nature of them therefore depends on the nature and the amount of the truth of faith that has been implanted in charity, as stated immediately above in 2189. From this it becomes clear that forms of good or holiness differ with each individual. Although they seem to be alike in the outward form they take they are not alike in their inward forms. And this applies both to people who are outside the Church and to those inside it. Within the good of charity residing with a person more is present than man can possibly believe. Present within it are all things that constitute his faith, and consequently they are present in the holiness of his worship. The nature of the holiness of his worship is visible to the angels as if seen in broad daylight, even though that person knows nothing further than that some degree of holiness exists with him. Myriads upon myriads of his thoughts concerning the goods and truths of faith and of the affections deriving from these are present within the holiness existing within him. But the general character of the holiness of worship will in the Lord's Divine mercy be spoken of elsewhere.