2053. 'My covenant shall be in your flesh' means conjunction of the Lord with man in his impurity. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as conjunction, dealt with above, and from the meaning of 'flesh' as man's proprium, also dealt with above, in 2041. How impure the proprium is has also been stated in that paragraph, and has been shown in Volume One, in 141, 150, 154, 210, 215, 694, 731, 874-876, 987, 1047. The implications of 'My covenant in your flesh' being the conjunction of the Lord with man in his impurity are as follows: No pure intellectual truth, which is Divine truth, resides with man. Instead the truths of faith residing with man are appearances of truth to which illusions of the senses attach themselves, and to these in turn falsities, belonging to the desires that go with self-love and love of the world. Such are the truths that reside with man. And how impure they are becomes clear from the fact that such illusions and falsities attach themselves to them.

[2] Nevertheless the Lord joins Himself to man within those very impurities, for with innocence and charity He brings soul and life to these, and in this way forms a conscience. The truths that constitute conscience vary, that is to say, they depend on the religion of the individual. These truths the Lord is unwilling to violate provided they are not contrary to the goods of faith, because the person has taken them to himself and considered them holy. The Lord breaks nobody, but bends him. This becomes clear from the consideration that every type of religious thought in the Church has followers who are being endowed with conscience. The closer its truths get to the genuine truths of faith the better that conscience is. Since it is from the truths of faith such as this that conscience is formed, it is clear that it has been formed in the understanding part of man's mind, for the understanding part is what receives those truths. This part of his mind the Lord has therefore miraculously separated from the will part. This is an arcanum previously unknown, concerning which see what has appeared in Volume One, in 863, 875, 895, 927, 1023. That 'covenant in your flesh' in addition denotes a meaningful sign, namely that of purification, is clear from what has been shown in 2039 about circumcision.

1047. That 'and when I cloud over the earth with cloud' means a time when, the will part of man's proprium being what it is, faith that flows from charity does not appear, is clear from what has been stated just above regarding 'the earth', that is, about the will part of man's proprium being such that it is constantly introducing obscurity, or falsity, into the understanding part. This is 'a clouding over'. All falsity originates in this way, as becomes quite clear from the fact that self-love and love of the world which belong to man's will are nothing else than hatred. For insofar as anyone loves himself he hates the neighbour. Because these loves are so contrary to heavenly love, it is inevitable that such things as are contrary to mutual love should be constantly flowing in from them. All of those things in the understanding part are falsities, and from them arises all the obscurity and darkness that is there. Falsity 'clouds over truth just as a dark cloud does to the light of the sun. And because falsity and truth cannot be present simultaneously any more than darkness and light, it follows plainly that one goes out as the other comes in. And this being an alternating occurrence reference is therefore made here to 'clouding over the earth with cloud', that is, a time when through the will part of the proprium no faith accompanying charity, or truth and derivative good, appears, still less good and derivative truth.