3776. 'My brothers, where are you from?' means, What is the origin of the charity there? This is clear from the meaning of 'brothers' as people governed by good, and consequently as good itself and therefore as charity, dealt with in 367, 2360, 3303, 3459, and from the meaning of 'Where are you from?' as, What is the origin? From these considerations it is also evident that the matters which in the sense of the letter are expressed as a question and have reference to persons fall in the internal sense into a mental image which has no reference to any person. For when the historical descriptions that belong to the letter leave man and pass into heaven they cease to be anything among the angels in heaven. From this it is clear that Jacob's question addressed to the men of Haran, 'My brothers, where are you from?' means, What is the origin of the charity there? The implications of this are that charity which looks like charity in outward appearance is not always charity inwardly. It is from the end in view that one recognizes which kind of charity it is and where it originates. Charity which springs from a selfish or a worldly end in view is not charity inwardly. Nor indeed ought it to be called charity. But charity which springs from the neighbour, the common good, heaven, and so the Lord, as the end in view is charity itself and contains the affection for doing good from the heart, and therefore contains the delight of life, which in the next life becomes a blessed delight. It is highly important for a person to know this if he is to know what the Lord's kingdom is within himself. Inquiry concerning this charity, or what amounts to the same, concerning this good, is the subject in the present verses. And the question is first put here, What is the origin of the charity there? meant by the question, 'My brothers, where are you from?'

1893. That 'Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no child' means that the Rational Man did not as yet exist will be clear from what is said later on, when Isaac is the subject, for everyone, as has been stated, has an internal man, a rational man which is in between, and an external man, which strictly speaking is the natural man. These, as they existed with the Lord, were represented by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the Internal Man by Abraham, the Rational Man by Isaac, and the Natural Man by Jacob. The Lord's Internal Man was Jehovah Himself, for He was conceived from Jehovah. This was why so many times He referred to Jehovah as His Father, and why in the Word the Lord is called 'the only begotten of God' and 'God's only Son'. The rational man does not exist with anyone when he is first born, only a potentiality to become rational, as may become clear to anyone from the fact that new-born babes do not possess reason but become rational as time goes by through the response of the senses to stimuli from without and from within, as knowledge and cognitions are bestowed on them. Rationality does, it is true, appear to exist with children; but rationality does not in fact do so, only something of the first beginnings of it, as may be recognized from the fact that reason resides with people who are adult and advanced in years.

[2] The Lord's Rational Man is the subject in the present chapter. The Divine Rational itself is represented by Isaac, but the first rational before it had become Divine is represented by Ishmael. Here therefore the statement that 'Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no child' means that the Divine Rational did not as yet exist. As stated already, the Lord was born in the same way as any other, and as regards what He derived from Mary His mother He was like any other. And because the rational is formed through facts and cognitions which enter in by way of the external senses, or the senses that belong to the external man, His first rational was therefore born as it is with any other. But since everything human in Him was made Divine by His own power, so was the rational made Divine. His first rational is described in the present chapter, and once more in Chapter 21, where again in verses 9-21 Hagar and Ishmael are the subject, where it is said that Ishmael was cast out when Isaac, who represents the Divine Rational, had grown up.