2077. That 'Abraham said to God' means the Lord's perception from love is clear from the meaning of 'saying to God' as perceiving, dealt with quite often already. That 'Abraham' here means the Lord when passing through that state and that age has been stated above in 1989. The Lord, it is evident, uttered this out of love, for the actual words used, 'O that Ishmael might live before You!' are an expression of an affection originating in love. The Lord's affection or love was Divine; that is to say, it was directed towards the whole human race which He desired, through the union of His Human Essence with the Divine Essence, to join completely to Himself and save eternally. Concerning that love see Volume One, in 1735; concerning the fact that the Lord out of this love contended constantly with the hells, 1690, 1789, 1812; and concerning the fact that in the union of His Human with the Divine His sole regard was nothing other than the conjunction of the Divine with the human race, 2034 above.

[2] The nature of the Lord's love surpasses all human understanding and is unbelievable in the extreme to people who do not know what heavenly love is in which angels abide. To save a soul from hell the angels think nothing of giving their own lives; indeed if it were possible they would suffer hell themselves in place of that soul. Consequently their inmost joy is to transport into heaven someone rising from the dead. They confess however that that love does not originate one little bit in themselves but that every single aspect of it does so in the Lord alone. Indeed they are incensed if anyone thinks anything different.

1053. That 'and the bow will be in the cloud' means the state of that man is clear from what has been stated and shown already about the bow in the cloud, that is to say, in the next life a person or soul is known among angels from his sphere; and as often as it pleases the Lord that sphere is represented by means of colours like those of the rainbow, variously according to each person's state as to faith in the Lord and thus respectively as to goods and truths of faith. In the next life colours present themselves to view, which on account of their brilliance and splendour are immensely superior in beauty to colours seen with the eyes on earth. Each colour represents something celestial or spiritual.

[2] Those colours derive from the light in heaven, and from the variegation of spiritual light, as stated above. Indeed angels live in light so bright that the light of the world is in comparison no light at all. The light of heaven in which angels live, compared with the light of the world, is as the light of the sun at midday to the light of a candle that is put out and ceases to give any light at all when the sun rises. In heaven there is celestial light and there is spiritual light. Let me compare the two by saying that celestial light is as the light of the sun, while spiritual light is as the light of the moon. But all manner of variation exists depending on the state of the angel receiving the light. The same applies to colours since they are a product of the light. In the heaven of celestial angels the Lord Himself is the Sun, and in the heaven of spiritual angels the Moon. To people who have no conception of the life which souls lead after death these matters are unbelievable. They are nevertheless completely true.