3161. 'Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as Jehovah has spoken' means consent inspired from the Lord. This too could be shown by an explanation of all the individual words, the general import of these in the internal sense being the meaning that has just been stated. The implications are as follows: When the Lord lived in the world He made the Human within Himself Divine by His own power, the human with everyone having its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, 2106, 2194. This verse describes how He made it Divine, that is to say, already so as of good and of truth. The good there came from His essential Divinity, that is, from Jehovah the Father from whom He had been conceived; but the truth there had to be acquired by the ordinary way, as with every other human being.

[2] It is well known that nobody is born rational but merely into the ability to become so, and that he becomes rational by means of factual knowledge, that is to say, by means of cognitions which divide up into many genera and species, the first of which are the means leading on to those next to them, and so on in order to the last of all which are cognitions of the spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom and are called matters of doctrine. These latter cognitions are learned in part from the doctrine of faith, in part directly from the Word, and in part therefore by a person's own efforts, as is also well known. As long as these matters of doctrine remain solely in the memory they are merely factual truths and have not as yet been made over to the individual as his own. They first become made over to him when he starts to love them for the sake of life, and more so when he applies them to life. When this happens truths are raised up from the natural memory into the rational part of the mind and are there joined to good. And when they have been joined they are no longer matters of knowledge but of life, for in that case a person is no longer learning from truths how to live but actually living by them. In this way truths come to be his own and become matters of the will. He accordingly enters the heavenly marriage, for the heavenly marriage consists in good and truth joined together in the rational. With men these things are accomplished by the Lord.

[3] But in Himself the Lord did this by Himself, unaided. From the Divine itself He not only begot the Rational as regards Good, but also through this the Natural as regards Truth, which He joined to Good. For it is good that chooses truth for itself and also gives form to it, for good acknowledges nothing else as truth but that which is compatible with it. Thus Divine good that was the Lord's moulded Truth for itself. Nor did it acknowledge as Truth anything else than that which would be compatible with Divine Good, that is, which would be Divine of Itself. Thus He achieved every single thing by His own power. These are the things that are meant by 'acknowledgement that it was the Lord's alone' and by 'consent inspired from the Lord'.

1803. 'But he who comes out of your own loins' means those in whom love to Him and love towards the neighbour are present. This is clear from the meaning of 'the loins', and of 'going out of the loins' as being born, here those who are being born from the Lord. People who are being born from the Lord, that is, being regenerated by Him, are receiving the Lord's life. As has been stated, the Lord's life is Divine love, that is, a love towards the entire human race, which love is such that His will is to bring eternal salvation, if possible, to the whole of it, that is, to all men. People who do not possess the Lord's love, that is, who do not love their neighbour as themselves, in no sense possess the Lord's life, and so are not in any sense born from Him, that is, they have not 'come out of His loins', and consequently cannot be heirs of His kingdom.

[2] From these considerations it is clear that 'going out of the loins' here means in the internal sense people in whom love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour are present, as in Isaiah,

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah your God, teaching you to profit, making you go in the way you should walk. O that you had hearkened to My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; and your seed would have been like the sand, and those who have gone out of your loins like its grains. Isaiah 48:17-19.

'Seed like the sand' stands for good, 'those who have gone out of your loins like its grains' for truth. Thus it stands for people in whom love is present, for with them alone does a love of good and truth exist.

[3] In addition the loins in the Word also mean love or mercy, the reason being that the generative organs, especially the mother's womb, represent and so mean chaste conjugial love and the love of children which is derived from that love, as in Isaiah,

The yearning of Your loins and of Your compassion ¹ towards me have held themselves back. Isaiah 63:15.

In Jeremiah,

Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me? Is he not a delightful child? Therefore My loins are troubled for him, I will surely have mercy on him. Jeremiah 31:20.

[4] From this it is clear that love itself, or the Lord's mercy itself and compassion towards the human race, are what the internal sense means by 'the loins', and by 'going out of the loins'. Consequently 'those who have gone out of the loins' means people in whom love is present. Concerning the Lord's kingdom as mutual love, see what has appeared already in 548, 549, 684, 693, 694

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