3236. 'Abraham' here represents the Lord as regards Divine Spiritual Good, and his wife as regards Divine Truth allied to that Good. This becomes clear from what has been stated already about husbands and wives (maritus and uxor) - that 'the husband' represents good, and 'the wife' truth, as Abraham and Sarah did previously, 1468, 1901, 2063, 2065, 2172, 2173, 2198, 2904, and as Isaac and Rebekah did in the chapter before this, 3077. The reason why 'the husband' represents good and 'the wife' truth is that the Church is compared to a marriage, and also is a marriage of good and truth. Good is what the husband represents because this is primary, while truth is what the wife represents because that is secondary. This also is why in the Word the Lord is called bridegroom, man, and husband, while the Church is called bride, woman, and wife.

[2] What spiritual good is and spiritual truth allied to that good becomes clear from the places referred to immediately above in 3235. With the spiritual man good is in general that which is called the good of faith, which is nothing else than charity towards the neighbour. But to be charity it must come from the new will which the Lord confers on the spiritual man. Spiritual truth allied to that good is what is called the truth of faith, which initially does nothing else than see charity as the end in view for which it exists, and later on as the source of its own existence. To be the truth of faith, or to be faith, it must in the case of the spiritual man come from a new understanding which the Lord confers on him, and which must receive its light from the new will.

7831. 'On the tenth of this month' means the state of the initiation of the interiors. This is clear from the meaning of 'the tenth' - day, that is to say - as the state of the interiors. For 'day' means state, 23, 487, 488, 493, 576, 893, 1738, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, 5672, and 'ten' means remnants, 576, 1906, 2284, that is, the truths and forms of good stored away by the Lord in a person's interiors, 1050, 1906, 2284, 5135, 5897, 7560, 7564. And since the remnants reside in his interiors, and they are used to prepare the person for and initiate him into receiving goodness and truth from the Lord, 'the tenth day' here means the state of the initiation of the interiors. With regard to a person's being regenerated by means of remnants, and so to his being initiated by means of them into receiving the inflow of goodness and truth from the Lord, see 5342, 5898, 6156, and with regard to his contact with heaven through them, 7560, for those forms of good and truths originate in the Lord, not in man, 7564. 'Month' is used to mean a whole state from start to finish, 7814, thus the complete state of deliverance, which the Passover in its entirety means. From all this it is evident that 'on the tenth of this month' means the state of the initiation of the interiors. This state - of the initiation of the interiors - lasted from the tenth day of that month through to the fourteenth day of it, between which days the Passover animal was to be held in safe keeping. 'The Passover animal' means the good of innocence, which is inmost; thus this good which is inmost, together with the interiors in which it resides, was in the meantime to be isolated and kept away from such things as defile it. This state is the state of the initiation of the interiors, that is, of being made ready to receive the inflow of goodness and truth from the Lord. This is the holy meaning contained in the words under consideration, for without that holy meaning deeply concealed within them no command would have been given for the Passover animal to be taken on the tenth of the month and held in safe keeping until the fourteenth day, or for it to be slaughtered after that between the evenings, and to be eaten roasted with fire and not boiled in water. Nor would they have been commanded not to leave any of it till morning, to burn with fire what remained, not to break a bone of it, and much else. These regulations, as anyone who ponders on them may recognize, have to do with things of a holy nature which no one is as yet acquainted with; and these holy things are spiritual ones that belong to the Church and heaven, and that are concerned with the Divine from whom every detail of the Word has come down.