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'.

2439. 'Therefore he called the name of the city Zoar' means the affection for truth. This is clear from the meaning of that city as the affection for good, that is to say, the affection for good that is the fruit of knowledge, which is the affection for truth, dealt with in 1589, and from the meaning of 'calling the name' as knowing the essential nature of some person or thing, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 2009. Here the meaning is that little truth was present, for the name 'Zoar' in the original language means little or small. People with the affection for truth possess little truth because they possess little good in comparison with those with the affection for good; see above 2429

[2] What is more, truths which are in themselves truths are more true with one person, less so with another; and with some they are not truths at all but indeed falsities. This becomes clear from almost all things which in themselves are truths. For truths as they reside-with the individual vary according to his affections. For example, the doing of a good work or the good of charity is in itself a truth to be put into practice. With one person it is the good of charity because it flows from charity, with another a work of obedience because it flows from obedience, with others it is a merit-seeking because they wish by means of it to earn merit and salvation, but with certain people it is a hypocritical action which they do to be seen by others; and so on. So it is with all other truths which are called truths of faith. From this it also becomes clear that much truth resides with people with the affection for good, but less truth with those with the affection for truth; for the latter look on good as something rather remote from themselves while the former look on it as something present within themselves.