3161. 'Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as Jehovah has spoken' means consent inspired from the Lord. This too could be shown by an explanation of all the individual words, the general import of these in the internal sense being the meaning that has just been stated. The implications are as follows: When the Lord lived in the world He made the Human within Himself Divine by His own power, the human with everyone having its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, 2106, 2194. This verse describes how He made it Divine, that is to say, already so as of good and of truth. The good there came from His essential Divinity, that is, from Jehovah the Father from whom He had been conceived; but the truth there had to be acquired by the ordinary way, as with every other human being.

[2] It is well known that nobody is born rational but merely into the ability to become so, and that he becomes rational by means of factual knowledge, that is to say, by means of cognitions which divide up into many genera and species, the first of which are the means leading on to those next to them, and so on in order to the last of all which are cognitions of the spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom and are called matters of doctrine. These latter cognitions are learned in part from the doctrine of faith, in part directly from the Word, and in part therefore by a person's own efforts, as is also well known. As long as these matters of doctrine remain solely in the memory they are merely factual truths and have not as yet been made over to the individual as his own. They first become made over to him when he starts to love them for the sake of life, and more so when he applies them to life. When this happens truths are raised up from the natural memory into the rational part of the mind and are there joined to good. And when they have been joined they are no longer matters of knowledge but of life, for in that case a person is no longer learning from truths how to live but actually living by them. In this way truths come to be his own and become matters of the will. He accordingly enters the heavenly marriage, for the heavenly marriage consists in good and truth joined together in the rational. With men these things are accomplished by the Lord.

[3] But in Himself the Lord did this by Himself, unaided. From the Divine itself He not only begot the Rational as regards Good, but also through this the Natural as regards Truth, which He joined to Good. For it is good that chooses truth for itself and also gives form to it, for good acknowledges nothing else as truth but that which is compatible with it. Thus Divine good that was the Lord's moulded Truth for itself. Nor did it acknowledge as Truth anything else than that which would be compatible with Divine Good, that is, which would be Divine of Itself. Thus He achieved every single thing by His own power. These are the things that are meant by 'acknowledgement that it was the Lord's alone' and by 'consent inspired from the Lord'.

2411. 'The men grasped his hand, and his wife's hand, and his daughters' hands' means that the Lord withheld him powerfully from evils and in so doing strengthened goods and truths meant by 'Lot, his wife, and his daughters'. This is clear from the meaning of 'the men' as the Lord, dealt with above; from the meaning of 'hand' as power, dealt with in 878; also from the meaning of 'Lot' as good that flows from charity, dealt with in 2324, 2351, 2371, 2399; from the meaning of 'wife' as the truth of faith, dealt with in verse 26 below; and from the meaning of 'daughters' as affections for truth and for good, dealt with in 489-491, 2362. Last of all it is clear from what has been stated in 2388, that is to say, that good and truth flow in from the Lord in the measure that a person is withheld from evil. Consequently the goods and truths meant by 'Lot, his wife, and his two daughters' are in that measure strengthened.

[2] This anyone may know from personal experience, if he stops to reflect. To the extent he is removed from bodily and worldly interests his ideas are spiritual, that is, he is lifted up towards heaven, as happens when engaged in any kind of sacred worship, when undergoing any temptation, and also when experiencing misfortune or sickness. At such times bodily and worldly interests - that is, the loves of them - are, as is well known, removed. The reason, which has been stated, is that what is celestial and spiritual is flowing in constantly from the Lord, but evil together with derivative falsity exists, and falsity together with derivative evil, which flow in from the bodily and worldly interests and obstruct the reception of what is celestial and spiritual.