3383. Verses 6-7 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar. And the men of the place asked about his wife, and he said, She is my sister. For he was afraid to say, My wife, [thinking,] The men of the place may perhaps kill me on account of Rebekah; for she was good-looking.

'Isaac dwelt in Gerar' means the Lord's state as regards matters of faith in respect to rational concepts which were to be allied. 'And the men of the place asked about his wife' means questions that people ask about Divine Truth. 'And he said, She is my sister' means rational truth. 'For he was afraid to say, My wife, [thinking,] The men of the place may perhaps kill me on account of Rebekah' means that it was impossible for Divine Truths themselves to be disclosed, and so for Divine Good to be received. 'For she was good-looking' means that it could be received without difficulty because of its being called Divine.

2504. 'And he sojourned in Gerar' means consequent instruction in the spiritual things of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'sojourning' as receiving instruction, dealt with in 1463, 2025, and from the meaning of 'Gerar' as the spiritual entity of faith. Gerar is mentioned in several places in Genesis, as in Chapter 10:19; 26:1, 6, 17, 20, 26, and in those places it means faith, the reason being that Gerar was in Philistia, and 'Philistia' means knowledge of the cognitions of faith, see 1197, 1198. Gerar was also the place where the king of the Philistines used to live. Consequently 'Gerar' means faith itself, 1209, and 'the king of Gerar' the truth itself of faith, for 'a king' in the internal sense is truth, 1672, 2015, 2069. Thus 'Abimelech' who is the subject in what follows means the doctrine of faith.

[2] In general there are intellectual things of faith, rational things of faith, and factual things of faith. In relation to one another they accordingly pass from more interior to more exterior. The inmost things of faith are called intellectual; those which pass down from them or from there are the rational things of faith; and those in turn which pass down from these are the factual things of faith. They are interrelated, to use the language of the learned, as prior to posterior, or what amounts to the same, as superior to inferior, that is, as more interior to more exterior. It does indeed seem to man as though the factual degree of faith is first and that the rational then arises from that, and after this the intellectual from that, for the reason that this is the way a human being develops from childhood onwards. But in fact the intellectual is constantly flowing; into the rational, and the rational into the factual, though man is not directly conscious of it. In childhood the influx is obscure; in adult years it is more noticeable; and when at length the individual has been regenerated it is quite manifest. Once he is regenerate this order is quite apparent, and still more fully so in the next life, see 1495. All of these things, distinguished as described into separate degrees and existing in relation to one another in the order shown, are called spiritual. The spiritual things of faith constitute all truths that stem from good, that is, from a celestial origin. Whatever derives from the celestial is one of the spiritual things of faith.