When the Bible speaks of "Jehovah," it is representing love itself, the inmost love that is the essence of the Lord. That divine love is one, whole and complete in itself, and Jehovah also is one, a name applied only to the Lord. The divine love expresses itself in the form of wisdom. Love, then, is the essence of God -- His inmost. Wisdom -- the loving understanding of how to put love into action -- is slightly more external, giving love a way to express itself. Wisdom, however, is expressed in a great variety of thoughts and ideas, what the Writings collectively call divine truth. There are also many imaginary gods, and sometimes angels and people can be called gods (the Lord said Moses would be as a god to Aaron). So when the Bible calls the Lord "God," it is in most cases referring to divine truth. In other cases, "God" has reference to what is called the divine human. The case there is this: As human beings, we cannot engage the Lord directly as divine love. It is too powerful and too pure. Instead, we have to approach Him by understanding Him through divine truth. Divine truth, then, is the Lord in human form, a form we can approach and understand. Thus "God" is also used in reference to this human aspect, because it is an expression of truth.

2500. 'Abraham travelled from there towards the land of the south' means the Lord's advances in goods and truths of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling' as advancing, dealt with in 1457, and from the meaning of 'the land of the south' as the good and truth of faith, dealt with in 1458. Previously in Chapter 12 it was said of Abraham when entering Egypt that 'he travelled, going on and travelling towards the south', verses 9-10, which meant in the internal sense that the Lord, when a boy, made advances into goods and truths as regards knowledge consisting of cognitions, 1456, 1459. Now in the present chapter it is said that he travelled towards the land of the south, which means further and more interior advances, made this time into goods and truths as regards the doctrine of faith. This is why the expression 'the land of the south' is used here, for 'land' in its proper sense means the Church, for whose sake doctrine exists, 566, 662, 1066, 2117, 2118.

[2] As regards the Lord's instruction in general, the nature of it is quite plain from the internal sense of this chapter. From that sense it is plain that He was taught through a whole succession of revelations and so through Divine perceptions and thoughts from Himself, that is, from His Divine. These perceptions and thoughts He implanted in Divine intelligence and wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect union of His Human and His Divine had been effected. This way of becoming wise is not at all open to anyone else, for it sprang from the Divine itself, which was His inmost, being the Father's, from whom He had been conceived. Thus it sprang from the Divine Love itself which the Lord alone possessed and which constituted His desire to save the entire human race.

[3] It is an arcanum as yet known by scarcely anyone that love itself holds wisdom and intelligence within it, but that the nature of these is determined by that of the love. The reason wisdom and intelligence exist within love is that all influx takes place into the love, or what amounts to the same, into the good, and so into the life itself of man. This is the source of the wisdom and intelligence possessed by angels, which are beyond description. It is the source also of the wisdom and intelligence possessed by men who are governed by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Although during their lifetime the latter do not discern at all the presence with them of such wisdom and intelligence, they nevertheless enter into these after death for the reason that they exist within love itself and within charity itself, see 2494. As for the Lord's love however, this was infinitely higher than the love which exists in angels, for it was Divine Love itself, and therefore He had within Himself the acme of all wisdom and intelligence. Yet into the possession of this, because He was born a human being (homo) and advanced as a human being does according to Divine order, He entered by successive degrees so that He might in that way unite His Human to the Divine and make it Divine, doing so by His own power.