1497. Now look: your wife; take her and go, means that the truth would be wedded to a heavenly quality. This can be seen from the symbolism of a wife as truth that needs to be united with something heavenly — a symbolism demonstrated earlier, at verses 11-12 [§§1468-1469, 1472-1473] — and from the statements just above.
Secrets of Heaven #1468
1468. That he said to Sarai his wife means that these were his thoughts about the truth to which heavenly qualities are attached, as can be seen from the symbolism of Sarai when she is called a wife. What a wife actually means in the Word's inner sense is truth united with goodness, because the bond between truth and goodness is no different than a marriage. When the Word speaks of a husband by name, he symbolizes what is good and his wife symbolizes truth. When it does not name the husband but calls him a man, however, he symbolizes truth and his wife symbolizes what is good. 1 The Word is consistent in this respect, as was noted earlier, at §915. Because Abram is mentioned by name in this chapter, Sarai his wife symbolizes truth. So saying something to Sarai his wife, in an inner sense, is thinking such-and-such about the truth to which heavenly qualities are united.
It is historically true that Abram spoke this way to his wife when he set out for Egypt, but as mentioned already, all the historical events of the Word are representative, while all the words are symbolic [§§1401-1409]. What was recorded was confined to the events, sequence, and wording that would express those secrets in an inner sense.
Footnotes:
1. A simplified version of the symbolic system pertaining to married couples in Swedenborg's exegesis is as follows: 1. Where the husband is referred to either by personal name or by the term "husband," he symbolizes good and his wife symbolizes truth (besides this section, see §§2517, 2581, 3236, 4510). 2. Where the husband is referred to by the term "man," he symbolizes truth and she symbolizes good (besides this section, see §§915, 2517, 2581, 4510). 3. Where the husband is referred to as "human," he symbolizes love and she symbolizes faith (§915). (For "human" as a different symbol — the union of husband and wife, or the church — see §§476-477.) On the Hebrew words underlying the Latin terms for "man" and "human," see note 1 in §40 and note 1 in §915. [SS]
