3394. 'But behold, she is your wife! So how did you come to say, She is my sister?' means, if it was Divine Truth, then it was not also rational truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'Rebekah', to whom 'wife' refers here, as the Divine Truth of the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 3012, 3013, 3077, and from the meaning of 'a sister' as rational truth, dealt with in 3386, so that 'behold, she is your wife! So how did you come to say, She is my sister?' means that being Divine Truth, it cannot be rational truth.
[2] The arcanum lying behind this matter is this: Spiritual people do not have perception as celestial people do, and therefore they do not know that Divine Truth becomes rational truth with a person once he has been regenerated. They do indeed assert that all good and all truth come from the Lord; but when these come to be present in their rational they still suppose that good and truth are their own and so originate so to speak in themselves. For they are unable to be separated from the proprium which desires this. With celestial people however the situation is that they do perceive Divine Good and Truth within the rational, that is, within rational concepts which, when enlightened from the Lord's Divine, are appearances of truth, 3368, and also within the natural, that is, within facts and sensory impressions. And this being the state in which celestial people live they are able to recognize that all good and truth flow in from the Lord, and that it is an ability to perceive what is good and true, which is communicated to them from the Lord as their own and is the cause of their delight, blessedness, and happiness. It was for this reason that the most ancient people who were celestial perceived within the particular objects which they saw with the eyes nothing else than spiritual and celestial things, 1409.
[3] Because this arcanum has to do with the regenerated spiritual person who through his regeneration by the Lord has received Divine Good within a new will and Divine Truth within a new understanding, and because that person perceives nothing other than this - that if the truth were rational it could not be Divine, as stated above, and so if it were Divine it would have nothing in common with rational - it is therefore stated here that if it was Divine Truth, then it was not also rational truth. This also is the reason why such people desire matters of faith to be believed in simplicity without any scrutiny by the rational. They are unaware of the fact that no matter of faith, not even the deepest arcanum of faith, can be grasped by anyone without the aid of some rational idea, or even a natural one, though he has no knowledge of the nature of those ideas, 3310 (end). In this way they are able to protect themselves against those who from a negative attitude argue about the truth of every single thing, 2568, 2588. But to those who have an affirmative attitude of belief in the Word the former is a harmful attitude to adopt, for it is one in which a person's freedom to think may be taken away and his conscience bound even to something extremely heretical, with the result that control is established over the person internally and externally. These are the considerations meant by Abimelech's saying to Isaac, 'Behold, she is your wife! So how did you come to say, She is my sister?'
