1410. Jehovah said to Abram symbolizes a first realization. The situation is this: The recorded fact is representative, but the actual words are symbolic. The ancient church's method of expression was such that when a thing was true, they would say, "Jehovah said," or "Jehovah spoke," meaning that it was so, as shown before [§§630, 708, 926, 1020, 1037].

After symbolism turned into representation, Jehovah (or the Lord) really did speak with people, and then when it says that Jehovah said something or that Jehovah spoke with someone, it has the same meaning as it did earlier. ¹ The Lord's words in the historical parts entail much the same thing that his words in the fictional parts do. The only difference is that the authors of the latter make up what seems to be a true story, while the authors of the former do not make it up.

This clause, then — "Jehovah said to Abram" — symbolizes nothing else than a first realization. In the ancient church, for instance, when people realized that a thing was so, because either conscience or some other inner voice or their Scriptures told them it was, they too said, "Jehovah said."

Footnotes:

1020. This symbolism can be seen by considering the nature of the text from Genesis 1 through the mention of Eber in Genesis 11. ¹ Everything assembled into the story there has a different meaning than appears in the letter, and the narrative details are pure fiction. This was the custom of the earliest people. ² When they were testifying to the truth of a matter, they would say "Jehovah said" (although here it is expressed as "God said," since the text is talking about a spiritual religion). ³ They said the same thing when anything was to come true or had come true.

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