3471. 'They were a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah' means that this led at first to grief. This is clear from the meaning of 'bitterness of spirit' as grief, and from the representation of 'Isaac and Rebekah' as the Lord's Divine Rational as regards Divine Good and Divine Truth. For in the highest sense the Lord is the subject, but in the representative sense those who are likenesses and images of Him. That is to say, the highest sense describes how the Lord made His own Human Divine, the representative how the Lord regenerates man, or makes him celestial and spiritual. As regards man's regeneration being the image of the Lord's glorification, see 3043, 3138, 3212, 3296.

[2] The reason why there was grief at first is that when truths are brought into association with natural good they give rise to grief initially since they weigh down the conscience and cause feelings of anxiety owing to the presence of cravings with which spiritual truth conflicts. But this initial grief lessens gradually and at length disappears. It is like the body, when feeble and ill, having to be restored to health by painful remedies. While in that condition it at first suffers pain and grief.

3043. 'You are clear from my oath' means the freedom that the natural man has. This is clear from the meaning of 'the servant', to whom Abraham's words are addressed, as the natural man, 3019, and from the meaning of 'being clear if the woman is unwilling to follow' in the proximate sense as not being bound if the affection for truth were not separated. These words, it is evident, imply the freedom that the natural man has; for the affection for truth, which is the subject here, and also its separation, is in the internal sense attributed to the natural man. In the historical sense these words do indeed have other connotations, but in the internal sense their implications are such.

[2] Regarding human freedom, see what has been stated and shown already in 892, 905, 1937, 1947, 2744, 2870-2893, for these paragraphs show what is implied by freedom. Freedom is attributed to the natural man, but not so much to the rational man, because it is by way of the rational man and into the natural man that good flows in, in heavenly freedom, from the Lord. It is the natural man that is the recipient of that good, and in order that it may receive it and so be joined to the heavenly freedom flowing in by way of the rational man, the natural man is left in freedom. For freedom goes with love or affection. If the natural man does not receive an affection for truth from an inflowing affection for good, that man is in no sense joined to the rational. This is how it is with man, whom the Lord reforms by means of freedom, see 1937, 1947, 2876-2878, 2881.

[3] In the Lord's case He too left the Natural in freedom when He made His Rational Divine as regards truth, that is, when He allied Divine Truth to the Divine Good of the Rational, for He was willing to make His Human Divine in the ordinary way. The ordinary way is that which occurs in anyone who is being reformed and regenerated. The actual reformation and regeneration of man is therefore a replica of what took place in the Lord. For by reformation and regeneration he becomes a new person, and is consequently called one begotten anew, and one created anew; and to the extent that he has been reformed he seems to have the Divine within him. But there is this difference, that the Lord made Himself Divine by His own power, whereas man is not able to effect the slightest reformation by his own power, only from the Lord. The expression 'seems to have the Divine' is used because man is solely a recipient of life, whereas the Lord is Life itself as to both Essences, see 1954, 2021, 2658, 2706, 3001.