3. Without such life the Word as regards the letter is dead, for it is the same with the Word as it is with man, who, as the Christian world knows, is internal as well as external. The external man if parted from the internal man is just a body and therefore dead. It is the internal man which lives and imparts life to the external. The internal man is the soul of the external man. The same applies to the Word which as to the letter alone is like the body without a soul.

10212. 'Throughout your generations' means members of the Church with whom the truths and forms of the good of faith are present. This is clear from the meaning of 'generations' as matters of faith and charity, dealt with in the places referred to in 10204. The reason why members of the Church are meant is that real truths and forms of the good of faith and love exist only with them, because with them the Word is present; and the children of Israel (it is their generations who should be understood here) mean the Church, see the places referred to in 9340.