3447. 'Abimelech went to him from Gerar' means the doctrine of faith which has regard to rational concepts. This is clear from the representation of 'Abimelech' as the doctrine of faith which has regard to rational concepts, dealt with in 2504, 2509, 2510, 3391, 3393, 3398, and from the meaning of 'Gerar' as faith, dealt with in 1209, 2504, 3365, 3384, 3385. For what doctrine having regard to rational concepts is, see 3368. From here to verse 33 the subject has to do with those among whom the literal sense of the Word and from this matters of doctrine concerning faith exist, and with the agreement of those matters of doctrine, insofar as they are drawn from the literal sense, with the internal sense; for 'Abimelech, and Ahuzzath his companion, and Phicol the commander of his army' represent those matters of doctrine. They are those who make faith the essential thing, and who, though they do not reject charity, rank it below faith, and so rate doctrine above life. Almost all our Churches today are like this, with the exception of that which exists in Christian Gentilism where people are allowed to venerate saints and images of them.

[2] As within every Church that is the Lord's some people are internal and others are external - the internal being those whose affection is for good, the external those whose affection is for truth - so it is also with those who are represented here by Abimelech, his companion, and the commander of his army. Those who are internal have been dealt with already in Chapter 21:22-33, where it is said of Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army that they came to Abraham and made a covenant with him in Beersheba, see 2719, 2720. But those who are external are dealt with here.

2719. The subject dealt with first in this chapter is the Lord's Rational, which was made Divine and is represented by Isaac, also the merely human rational that was separated from Him and is represented by the son of Hagar the Egyptian. Immediately after that the subject is the spiritual Church which was saved by means of the Lord's Divine Human, and is represented by Hagar and her boy. Now the subject is the doctrine of faith that was to be of service to that Church, that is to say, the merely human rational ideas based on facts were allied to it, which ideas are represented by 'Abimelech and Phicol'. This alliance is meant by 'the covenant' that Abraham made with them. Those rational ideas are appearances that come not from a Divine but from a human origin. They were allied to it for the reason that without them the spiritual Church would not be able to have any grasp of doctrine and so would not receive it. For, as shown in 2715, the member of the spiritual Church, compared with the member of the celestial Church, dwells in obscurity, and doctrine has therefore to be shrouded in appearances such as make up human thought and affection, though these appearances must not be so at variance that Divine Good cannot find in them some receptacle for itself. Since a description occurs again, in Chapter 26, of Abimelech, and of a covenant, though in that place he makes it with Isaac, and since the subject in the internal sense is the rational ideas and the factual knowledge linked a second time to the doctrine of faith, let merely a summary explanation be given of what is contained at this point in the internal sense. A clearer understanding of these matters will emerge from the explanation of Chapter 26.