3281. 'And Isaac was a son of forty years' means from His own power by means of the conflicts brought about by temptations. This is clear from the representation of 'Isaac' as the Divine Rational, often dealt with already, from the meaning of 'forty' as temptations, dealt with in 730, 862, and from the meaning of 'years' as states, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788. Consequently the internal sense of these words is that the Lord made His Rational Divine even as regards truth by means of the conflicts brought about by temptations, and so by His own power. For the Lord by His own power made everything human within Himself Divine by means of the temptations He underwent, as has been shown already in 1661, 1663, 1668, 1690, 1787, 2083, 2523, 2632, 2776, 3030, 3043, 3141.

1663. 'That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar' means just so many kinds of evil desires and false persuasions against which the Lord fought. This too becomes clear from the meaning of these kings and these nations that are mentioned, and from what follows as well. Which particular evil desires and which particular false persuasions are meant by each individual one would also take too long to explain. The meaning of Sodom and Gomorrah, also of Admah and Zeboiim, as well as Zoar, has been dealt with briefly already. They are the most general or most universal kinds of evils and falsities; and these, which are meant in the internal sense, here follow in their own sequence.

[2] The fact that the Lord underwent and suffered the severest of temptations, more severe than anybody else has ever done, is not so well known from the Word, where all that is mentioned is His being in the wilderness forty days and being tempted by the devil. But although the temptations He experienced at that time have been described only briefly, those brief statements nevertheless embody all, as in Mark 1:12-13, which records that He was there with wild animals, which mean the worst of the hellish crew. And the events afterwards recorded about the devil taking Him up on to the pinnacles of the temple and on to a high mountain are nothing else than representatives of very severe temptations He experienced in the wilderness, which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on.