904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

10062. 'And on the thumb of their right hand' means the resulting power of understanding in the middle heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'the thumb' as the power of good exercised through truth, or truth in its power springing from good, and the resulting power of understanding, dealt with below. The reason why the power of understanding in the middle heaven is meant is that 'the blood' which was put on the thumb means Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good in the heavens, dealt with above in 10060, at this point therefore the resulting power of understanding. For 'the blood on the tip of the right ear' means the power of perception in the inmost heaven; as a result 'the blood on the thumb of the right hand' means the power of understanding in the middle heaven, while [that on] 'the big toe of the right foot' means the power of understanding in the last and lowest heaven. For the things that belong to the inmost heaven are meant by the head and parts of the head, and therefore this heaven's power of perception is meant here by 'the right ear', since the ear is part of the head. The things that belong to the middle heaven are meant by the body and parts of the body, and therefore the power of understanding is meant here by 'the right hand', while those things that belong to the lowest heaven are meant by the feet and parts of the feet. Regarding such correspondence of the heavens with the human being, see above in 10030 and the places referred to there. In the inmost heaven furthermore exists the ability to perceive truth springing from good; in the middle heaven however no ability to perceive truth exists, only the ability to understand it. And the like is so in the lowest heaven, see the places referred to in 9277, 9596, 9684.

[2] 'The thumb of the right hand' - which means truth in its power springing from good, and the resulting power of understanding in the middle heaven - seems, it is true, to be something too small and insignificant to mean heaven; for how, it may be asked, can the thumb come to have so great and significant a meaning? But it should be remembered that the last and lowest or outermost part of any member of the body has the same meaning as the whole member. 'The hand' means the whole power of the body, and the power which the body possesses is exercised through the arms and hands. Regarding what is last or outermost, that it means all or the whole, in the same way as what is first and highest, see above in 10044.

[3] For the meaning of 'the hands' as power and the fact that all power belongs to truth springing from good, see the places referred to in 10019; and for the meaning of 'the right hand' as the power of truth springing from good, and 'the left hand' as truth through which comes good, 10061. The reason why the power of understanding is what should be understood is that all the power of understanding is composed of truths, whereas all the power of will is composed of forms of good. For everything in the world and in heaven has connection with truth and with good, and the human understanding has been provided for truths and the will for forms of good. Therefore since truth in its power is meant by 'the hands', the understanding as well is meant by them.

[4] Because the thumb, like the hands, meant the power that belongs to truth springing from good, it was the practice in ancient times among the nations, and also among the Israelite people, to cut off the thumbs and big toes of their enemies, Judges 1:6-7; this represented the removal of all power from them. In the thumb furthermore resides the main power of the hand, for when the thumb has been cut off the hand no longer has the strength to fight in battle. Just as the thumb means power, so do 'the fingers', as in David,

Jehovah trains my hands for conflicts, and my fingers for war. Psalms 144:1.

In the same author,

When I look at the heavens, the work of Your fingers ... Psalms 8:3.

In Luke,

Jesus said, If I cast out demons by the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come to you. Luke 11:20.