27. Verse 9 And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.

Once a person knows of the existence of the internal man and of the external man, and knows that, contrary to appearance, truths and goods flow in from the internal man, or from the Lord by way of the internal into the external, then the things residing in him as cognitions of truth and good are stored away in his memory and registered among the facts there. For anything that finds its way into the memory or the external man, whether natural, spiritual, or celestial, lodges there as known fact, and from that place it is brought out by the Lord. These cognitions are 'the waters gathered together to one place' and are called 'seas'. But the external man itself is called 'the dry land' and immediately afterwards 'earth', as in the verses that follow.

2198. 'Abraham and Sarah were old' means that the human with the Lord was to be cast off. This is clear from the representation of 'Abraham and Sarah', and also from the meaning of 'old' or old age. 'Abraham' here represents the Lord as regards rational good, while 'Sarah' represents the Lord as regards rational truth, as stated above in various places in this chapter. Thus each here represents the human with the Lord, the reason being, as stated above, that Jehovah was now present and spoke to Abraham. And Jehovah was the Lord's Divine itself, not separate from Him even though it presents itself in representative historical events as separate; for by means of historical events it cannot be represented in any other way. But when it is said that Abraham and Sarah were old the meaning is that that human was to be cast off. 'Old age' does not imply anything other than a final period. In the Word reference is made in various places to 'old age' and to the fact that people 'died'. But neither old age nor death of the body is ever perceived in the internal sense, but something other than these which is evident from the whole sequence of thought; for those in the next life do not know what old age is or what death is. What is meant here is evident, as has been said, from the whole train of thought, which is that the Lord was to cast off the human.