966. And it became blood as of one dead, signifies that these have all been falsified. This is evident from the signification of "blood," as being the Divine truth, and in the contrary sense Divine truth falsified (See n. 30, 328, 329, 476, 748); so here that all knowledges of truth from the Word have been falsified. Knowledges of truth from the Word are the truths of the sense of its letter, that is, the truths in the Word that are for the natural man, and these, too, are Divine truths. These wholly falsified are signified by the words, "the sea became blood as of one dead." The Divine truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are said to be falsified when they are perverted even to the destruction of interior Divine truth, that is, Divine truth in the heavens. In the heavens they then appear with man as the blood of one dead. It has been frequently shown above that those who separate faith from the goods of life falsify the Word; and it is of such that these things are said, as is evident from the second verse of this chapter.

(Continuation: The Fourth Commandment)

[2] The fourth commandment of the Decalogue is that parents must be honored.

This commandment was given because honor to parents represented and thus signified love to the Lord and love towards the church, for "father" in the heavenly sense, that is, the Heavenly Father, is the Lord; and "mother" in the heavenly sense, that is, the heavenly mother, is the church; "honor" signifies the good of love; and "length of days," which they will have, signifies the happiness of eternal life. So is this commandment understood in heaven, where no other father but the Lord is known, and no other mother but the kingdom of the Lord, which is also the church. For the Lord gives life from Himself, and through the church He gives nourishment. That in the heavenly sense no father in the world can be meant, and indeed, when man is in a heavenly idea, can be mentioned, the Lord teaches in Matthew:

Call no man your father on earth; for one is your Father who is in the heavens (Matthew 23:9).

That "Father" signifies the Lord as to the Divine good may be seen above (n. 32, 200, 254, 297).

That "mother" signifies the Lord's kingdom, the church, and the Divine truth, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia 289, 2691, 2717, 3703, 5581, 8897.

That "length of days" signifies the happiness of eternal life (n. 8898); and that "honor" signifies the good of love (n. 8897, and above, n. 288, 345). All this makes clear that the third and fourth commandments involve arcana relating to the Lord, namely, the acknowledgment and confession of His Divine, and the worship of Him from the good of love.

1895. 'She had an Egyptian servant-girl' means the affection for knowledge. This is clear from the meaning of 'a servant-girl' and from the meaning of 'Egypt'. Sarai, who is the mistress or lady, represents and means truth allied to good, as stated already. Truth allied to good is in the genuine sense intellectual truth, but rational truth comes below this and so is inferior. The latter is born from knowledge and cognitions that have been made living by means of an affection corresponding to them. Because this affection is part of the exterior man, it ought to be subservient to intellectual truth, which resides inmostly, in the way that a servant-girl is subservient to her mistress or a maid to the lady of - the house. That affection therefore is what is represented and meant by 'the servant-girl Hagar'.

[2] No one can have much understanding of anything said about these matters until he knows what intellectual truth is in the genuine sense and also in what way the rational is born, namely from the internal man as the father, and from the exterior or natural man as the mother. Unless the two are joined together nothing rational ever comes into being. The rational is not born from knowledge and cognitions, as people suppose, but from the affection for them, as becomes clear merely from the fact that nobody can possibly become rational unless some delight in or affection for such knowledge and cognitions burns within him. The affection constitutes the maternal life itself, while the celestial and spiritual within that affection constitute the paternal life. Consequently it is the degree and the quality of a person's affection that determine the degree and the quality of the rationality that is developed in him. In themselves facts and cognitions are nothing other than things that are dead, or instrumental causes, which are made alive by the life that belongs to affection. This is how everyone's rational man is conceived. The reason why the servant-girl was Egyptian and why that fact is mentioned is that 'Egypt' means knowledge, as has been shown already in 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462,