8942. 'For if you move your chisel over it' means if a product of the proprium or self. This is clear from the meaning of 'chisel' as counterfeit truth, thus a product of the self. For a chisel is a piece of iron used to carve and shape figures out of stones, and therefore the human self is meant here since this shapes things which are to compose religion, to make them look like the truth. Instead of the word 'chisel' some places elsewhere have '[a piece of] iron', while others elsewhere have 'axe', as in Deuteronomy 27:5; Joshua 8:30-31; 1 Kings 6:7; Isaiah 44:10-12; Hosea 13:2; Jeremiah 10:3-4; and these tools mean such things as are implements of self-intelligence used for fabrication.

1469. That 'Sarai his wife' is truth allied to the celestial things that resided with the Lord is clear from what has just been stated about the meaning of 'Sarai his wife'. The reason for the expression 'truth allied to celestial things' is that all truth resided with the Lord already. That which is celestial has truth with it, one being as inseparable from the other as light from flame. Such truth however was stored away in His Internal Man, which was Divine. The facts and cognitions which He learned were not truths, only recipient vessels, just as something in the human memory is by no means truth even though it is referred to as such. Rather the truth is held within them as its vessels. These vessels were to be formed by the Lord - or rather opened up by Him - through instruction in cognitions from the Word, not only in order that celestial things might be implanted in them but also in order that celestial things might in this way be made Divine; for the Lord joined the Divine Essence to the Human Essence in order that His Human Essence might be made Divine also.