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Génesis 26:17

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17 E Isaac se fue de allí; y asentó sus tiendas en el valle de Gerar, y habitó allí.

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Arcana Coelestia # 3373

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3373. 'And to your seed' means truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'seed' as truth, dealt with in 29, 255, 1025, 1447, 1610, 1940, 2848, 3310, and so truth from the Lord's Divine, which is 'your seed'. Those who understand the Word solely according to the sense of the letter can know no more than this, that 'seed' means descendants - here Isaac's descendants through Esau and Jacob, primarily through Jacob since the Word existed among that nation and so many of its historical descriptions have to do with them. But in the internal sense 'seed' is not used to mean any descendants from Isaac but all who are the Lord's 'sons', and so who are 'the sons of His kingdom', or what amounts to the same, those in whom good and truth which come from the Lord are present. And as these constitute 'the seed' it follows that good and truth themselves from the Lord are 'the seed', for these are what make people His 'sons'. This is also the reason why truths themselves which come from the Lord are called 'the sons of the kingdom' in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the seed are the sons of the kingdom. Matthew 13:37-38.

And for this reason also 'sons' generally means truths, 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623.

[2] Anyone who thinks rather more deeply or inwardly may recognize that the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, mentioned so many times, and spoken of so many times as those who were to be blessed, and more so than all nations and peoples in all the world, cannot in the Divine Word mean the descendants of those three. For among all nations they least of all were moved by the good that flows from love to the Lord and from charity towards the neighbour. Nor indeed did any truth of faith exist with them. Who the Lord is, what His kingdom is, and so what heaven is and what the life after death, they did not know at all. They did not know these things because for one thing they did not wish to know and for another because if they had come to know about them they would have denied them completely in their hearts and so would have profaned interior goods and truths, as they did exterior by becoming on so many occasions open idolaters. This is the reason why any interior truths are rarely visible in the literal sense of the Old Testament Word. Because the nature of those people was such, the Lord therefore said about them, quoting Isaiah,

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and are converted and I heal them. John 12:40.

What He said about them when they declared they were 'the seed of Abraham',

They said, We are the seed of Abraham. Our father is Abraham. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's sons, you would do the works of Abraham. You are from your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will to do. John 8:33, 39, 44.

Here also 'Abraham' is used to mean the Lord, as in every other instance in the Word. The Lord explicitly states that they were not His seed or sons but came from the devil. From this it is quite evident that 'the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' in both the historical part and the prophetical part of the Word is in no way used to mean such descendants, for the Word is Divine in every detail Instead it means all who constitute 'the Lord's seed', that is, those with whom the good and truth of faith in Him are present. The fact that heavenly seed, that is, all good and truth, comes from the Lord alone, see 1438, 1614, 2016, 2803, 2882, 2883, 2891, 2892, 2904, 3195.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia # 2016

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2016. To say that the Lord is the source of all good, and from this of all truth, is to express an unchanging truth. Angels see this truth with perception, so clearly that they perceive that insofar as anything is derived from the Lord it is good and true, and insofar as anything is derived from themselves it is evil and false. They also confess this truth before souls newly arrived there, and before spirits who are in doubt about it; indeed, they go so far as to declare that they are withheld by the Lord from evil and falsity which arise from their proprium and are kept by Him in good and truth. The actual withholding from their evil and falsity and the actual entrance of the Lord with good and truth is also perceptible to them; see 1614. But as to man's imagining that he does what is good from himself and thinks what is true from himself, this is an appearance due to his state being a state in which no perception is present and in which very great obscurity exists where influx is concerned. What he thinks therefore is based on that appearance, indeed on a delusion, from which he never allows himself to be removed so long as he believes nothing but the senses and reasons from these whether the thing is so. But although the appearance is such, man ought nevertheless to do what is good and to think what is true as from himself, for in no other way can he be reformed and regenerated. For the reason why, see 1937, 1947.

[2] The subject in this verse is the Lord's Human Essence that was to be united to the Divine Essence, also that all good and truth would accordingly come to man from the Divine Essence by way of His Human Essence. This is a Divine arcanum which few believe because they cannot grasp it mentally. Indeed they imagine that Divine Good can reach out to man independently of the Lord's Human united to the Divine. But the reason it cannot do so has already been shown briefly in 1676, 1990 - that through the evil desires in which he had immersed himself and through the falsities with which he had blinded himself man had moved himself so far away from the Supreme Divine that no influx of the Divine into the rational part of his mind was possible, except by way of the Human which the Lord united in Himself to the Divine. It was through His Human that communication was established, for in that way the Supreme Divine was able to come to man, as the Lord explicitly states in many places, that is to say, where He says that He is the way and that there is no other access to the Father except through Him. This then is what is being stated here - that He, that is to say, the Human united to the Divine, is the source of all good and of all truth.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.