1702. That “Abram the Hebrew” is the interior man to which the internal or Divine man was adjoined, may be seen from the signification of “Abram the Hebrew,” or from the surnaming of Abram, in that he is here called “the Hebrew.” In what goes before, and in what follows, where Abram is spoken of, he is not called the Hebrew; he is so called in this passage only; and therefore some distinct thing in the Lord is represented and signified by “Abram the Hebrew.” What is represented and signified may be seen from the internal sense, namely, that it is the interior man adjoined to the internal or Divine man, as may likewise be seen from the series of things in the internal sense. The Hebrews are named in the Word when anything of servitude is signified, whatever it may be; as may be seen from what follows. The interior man is such that it serves the internal or Divine man; and for this reason the interior man is here called “Abram the Hebrew.”

[2] What the interior man is, scarcely anyone knows, and it must therefore be briefly stated. The interior man is intermediate between the internal and the external man. By the interior man the internal man communicates with the external; without this medium, no communication at all is possible. The celestial is distinct from the natural, and still more from the corporeal, and unless there is a medium by which there is communication, the celestial cannot operate at all into the natural, and still less into the corporeal. It is the interior man which is called the rational man; and this man, because it is intermediate, communicates with the internal man, where there is good itself and truth itself; and it also communicates with the exterior man, where there are evil and falsity. By means of the communication with the internal man, a man can think of celestial and spiritual things, or can look upward, which beasts cannot do. By means of the communication with the exterior man, a man can think of worldly and corporeal things, or can look downward; in this differing little from the beasts, which have in like manner an idea of earthly things. In a word, the interior or middle man is the rational man himself, who is spiritual or celestial when he looks upward, but animal when he looks downward.

[3] It is well known that a man can know that he speaks in one way while thinking in another, and that he does one thing while willing another; and that there exist simulation and deceit; also that there is reason, or the rational; and that this is something interior, because it can dissent; and also that with one who is to be regenerated there is something interior which combats with that which is exterior. This that is interior, and that thinks and wills differently from the exterior, and that combats, is the interior man. In this interior man there is conscience with the spiritual man, and perception with the celestial. This interior man, conjoined with the Divine internal man that was in the Lord, is what is here called “Abram the Hebrew.”