3375. And I will set up the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father. That this signifies confirmation, is evident from the signification of an “oath,” or of “swearing,” as being confirmation (n. 2842). It is not here said to “set up the covenant” made with Abraham, but the “oath,” for the reason that a “covenant” is predicated of the celestial or of good, but an “oath” of the spiritual or of truths (n. 3037), which are the subject here treated of. And for the same reason in what follows it is not said of Isaac that he “made a covenant with Abimelech,” but that he “sware a man to his brother” (verse 31); whereas it is said of Abraham that he and Abimelech “made a covenant” (Genesis 21:32; see Psalms 105:8-10). By the confirmation here referred to which is signified by an “oath,” there is meant the conjunction of the Lord with those who are in His kingdom; for an “oath” is the confirmation of a covenant; and by a “covenant” is signified conjunction (n. 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 1996, 2003, 2021).

1023. And I, behold, I establish My covenant. That this signifies the presence of the Lord in charity, is evident from the signification of “covenant” as shown above n. 666), where it was shown that a “covenant” signifies regeneration, and indeed the conjunction of the Lord with the regenerate man by love; and that the heavenly marriage is that veriest covenant itself, and consequently so is the heavenly marriage with every regenerate man. This marriage or covenant has been treated of before. With the man of the Most Ancient Church the heavenly marriage was in the Own of his will part, but with the man of the Ancient Church the heavenly marriage was effected in the Own of his intellectual part. For when man’s will part had become wholly corrupt, the Lord miraculously separated the Own of his intellectual part from that corrupt Own of his will part, and in the Own of his intellectual part He formed a new will, which is conscience, and into the conscience insinuated charity, and into the charity innocence, and thus conjoined Himself with man, or what is the same, made a covenant with him. So far as the Own of man’s will part can be separated from this Own of the intellectual part, the Lord can be present with him, or conjoin Himself, or enter into a covenant with him. Temptations and the like means of regeneration cause the Own of man’s will part to be quiescent, to become as nothing, and as it were to die. So far as this is done the Lord through conscience implanted in the Own of man’s intellectual part can work in charity. And this is what is here called a “covenant.”