1411. 'Go away from your land' means the bodily and worldly things from which He was to depart. This is clear from the meaning of 'land', which is varied depending on the person or thing to which it refers, as also in Genesis 1 where 'land', or 'earth', likewise meant the external man, and elsewhere, 82, 620, 636, 913. The reason why here it means bodily and worldly things is that these belong to the external man. 'Land' in the proper sense is a land itself, region, or kingdom; also the one who inhabits it, as well as its people, and the nation that is there. Thus the word 'land' not only means in a broad sense the people or nation but also in a narrower sense the inhabitant. When land is used with reference to the inhabitant the meaning is in accordance with the real things involved in such a reference; in this case bodily and worldly things are involved, because the land of his birth from which Abram was to go was idolatrous. Thus in the historical sense the meaning here is that Abram was to go away from that land, but in the representative sense that the Lord was to depart from the things belonging to the external man, that is, that external things should not get in the way or cause disturbance, and, since the Lord is the subject, that External things should accord with Internal.

636. 'I will destroy them together with the earth' means that the human race would perish together with the Church. This is clear from the fact that here the phrase 'together with the earth' is used. In fact, as previously stated, 'earth' in a broad sense means love and so the celestial things of the Church. Here because no love, nor anything celestial, was left it means self-love and that which is contrary to the celestial aspect of the Church. Despite this the member of the Church still existed because he possessed doctrinal matters concerning faith. For as has been stated, love includes faith within itself, and faith includes cognitions of faith, just as the earth includes the ground, and the ground includes the field.