1785. After these words, the word of Jehovah came to Abram in a vision. That this signifies that after the combats in childhood there was revelation, is evident from the signification of “words,” also of “the word of Jehovah to Abram,” and also from the signification of “a vision.” By “words,” in the Hebrew language, are signified actual things; here the things accomplished, which are the Lord’s combats of temptations, treated of in the preceding chapter. “The word of Jehovah to Abram” is nothing else than the Lord’s word with Himself but in childhood, and in the combats of temptations, when the Essences were not yet united as a one, it could not appear otherwise than as a revelation. What is internal, when it acts into what is external, in a state and at moments when this is far away, is presented in no other manner. This is the state which is called the Lord’s state of humiliation.
