2093. 'Whom Sarah will bear to you' means Divine Truth joined to Divine Good from which it will come forth into being. This is clear from the representation of 'Sarah' as Divine Truth, dealt with already in 2063, 2081, and from the representation of 'Abraham' as Divine Good, dealt with in 2063 and in various places elsewhere.

[2] The manner in which the Lord's first rational was conceived and born has been stated in the previous chapter where Ishmael, who represented that rational, was the subject. This chapter and the next deal with that Rational which was made Divine by the Lord, something He achieved through the marriage-like conjunction of Divine Good with Divine Truth. The only possible way the first rational can be conceived is by the influx of the Internal Man into the External Man's affection for knowledge. Nor can it be born from anything other than the affection for knowledge, an affection represented by 'Hagar, Sarai's servant-girl', as shown in the previous chapter, in 1896, 1902, 1910, and elsewhere in that chapter.

[3] But the second or Divine Rational is not conceived and born in the same way but by the conjunction of Truth in the Internal Man with Good in the same, and the resulting influx. In the Lord's case this was achieved by His own power derived from the Divine itself, that is, from Jehovah. As stated in various places already, His Internal Man was Jehovah. And Good itself, represented by 'Abraham', belonged to the Internal Man, as also did Truth itself, represented by 'Sarah'. Both were on that account Divine, and from them both the Lord's Divine Rational was conceived and born. Indeed it was conceived and born from the influx of good into truth, and so by means of truth, for the principal element in the rational is truth, as stated above in 2072. Hence the statement here 'whom Sarah will bear to you', which means Divine Truth joined to Good from which it will come into being, and at verse 17 above the statement 'Sarah a daughter of ninety years' means that Truth joined to Good will accomplish this.

[4] With all human beings, since each has been created in the likeness and image of God, something similar yet not comparable takes place, in that his first rational too is conceived and born through the influx of his internal man into the life of his external man's affection for knowledge, but his second rational results from the influx of good and truth from the Lord by way of his internal man. This second rational he receives from the Lord when he is being regenerated, for at that time he senses within his rational what the good and truth of faith are. The internal man with anyone is above his rational, and is the Lord's. This is dealt with in 1889, 1940.

1902. 'And Abram hearkened to Sarai's voice' means it could not have been achieved in any other way. This becomes clear from the train of thought in the internal sense and from the necessity that the human rational can be born in this and no other way. If man were not steeped in any hereditary evil, the rational would be born straightaway from the marriage of the celestial things belonging to the internal man with the spiritual things belonging to the same; and through the rational the faculty of knowing would be born. This would mean that on entering the world a person would possess straightaway within himself fully-formed faculties of reason and of knowing, for this would all be in accordance with the order that belongs to influx. This may be deduced from the fact that all animals without exception are born into a fully-formed faculty of knowing what they need and what is suitable for them in the way of food, safety, habitat, and producing offspring, because their inborn nature is in accordance with order. For what other reason is man born without the same faculties than that in his case order has been destroyed - for he alone is born without any knowledge?

[2] That which causes him to be born without any knowledge is hereditary evil received from his father and from his mother. Because of that evil all his faculties are turned in a contrary direction insofar as goods and truths are concerned, so that the latter are not able through an immediate influx of celestial and spiritual things from the Lord to be translated into correspondent forms. This is the reason why man's rational has to be formed in an entirely different manner or way, that is to say, by means of facts and cognitions entering in through the senses, and so by the external route, thus by what is a reversal of order. In this way, miraculously so, a person is made rational by the Lord. This is described by 'going in to the servant-girl', which means the joining of the internal man to the exterior man, and by the statement that 'Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai', which means that it could not have been achieved in any other way.

[3] Because the Lord was born as any other is born and had a heredity from the mother, He was like any other in this respect also, the purpose being that through the conflicts brought about by temptations and through victories He might restore all things to order. His Rational as well therefore was conceived and born as it is with any other, yet with the difference that the Divine, or Jehovah - and so the life belonging to love towards the whole human race, on whose behalf and for whose salvation He fought in all His temptations - resided in every single thing that was His inmostly.