41. Anything that is man's own has no life in it; and when depicted visually it looks like something hard as a bone and black. But anything that comes from the Lord does contain life. It has that which is spiritual and celestial within it, and when depicted visually it looks human and alive. It is perhaps incredible, but nevertheless absolutely true, that every expression, every idea, and every least thought of an angelic spirit is alive. In even the most detailed areas of his thought there is an affection that comes from the Lord, who is life itself. Consequently all that derives from the Lord has life within it, for it contains faith in Him, and is here meant by 'a living creature'. It then has the outward appearance of a body, meant here by that which is moving, or creeping. To man these matters remain arcana, but since the subject here is the living and moving creature, they ought at least to be mentioned here.

1411. 'Go away from your land' means the bodily and worldly things from which He was to depart. This is clear from the meaning of 'land', which is varied depending on the person or thing to which it refers, as also in Genesis 1 where 'land', or 'earth', likewise meant the external man, and elsewhere, 82, 620, 636, 913. The reason why here it means bodily and worldly things is that these belong to the external man. 'Land' in the proper sense is a land itself, region, or kingdom; also the one who inhabits it, as well as its people, and the nation that is there. Thus the word 'land' not only means in a broad sense the people or nation but also in a narrower sense the inhabitant. When land is used with reference to the inhabitant the meaning is in accordance with the real things involved in such a reference; in this case bodily and worldly things are involved, because the land of his birth from which Abram was to go was idolatrous. Thus in the historical sense the meaning here is that Abram was to go away from that land, but in the representative sense that the Lord was to depart from the things belonging to the external man, that is, that external things should not get in the way or cause disturbance, and, since the Lord is the subject, that External things should accord with Internal.