In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

3364. 'There was a famine in the land, in addition to the previous famine that occurred in the days of Abraham' means an absence of cognitions of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'a famine' as an absence of cognitions, dealt with in 1460; and that an absence of cognitions of faith is meant is evident from what follows next - from the representation of 'Abimelech' and from the meaning of 'Gerar' as the things that belong to faith. 'The famine in the days of Abraham', which is mentioned in Chapter 12:10, and is dealt with in 1460, was an absence of cognitions that belong to the natural man, whereas the famine referred to here is an absence of cognitions that belong to the rational man. This is why it is said that 'there was a famine in the land, in addition to the previous famine that occurred in the days of Abraham'.

[2] The subject here in the internal sense is that the Lord received all matters of doctrine concerning faith from His own Divine; for no matter of doctrine exists, not even the smallest, that does not come from the Lord, for the Lord is doctrine itself. This is why the Lord is called the Word, for the Word is doctrine. But because everything in the Lord is Divine, and the Divine cannot be comprehended by any created being, matters of doctrine which come from the Lord, in that they present themselves before created beings, are not therefore wholly Divine truths but appearances of truth. All the same, appearances do include Divine truths within them, and because they include them, appearances also are called truths. These appearances are the subject in this chapter.