1545. The symbolism of he and his wife as heavenly truth that the Lord then possessed can be seen from the symbolism of him — Abram — as the Lord. And because Abram symbolizes the Lord, he also symbolizes something heavenly in the Lord. Our humanness comes from the qualities we possess. The Lord's humanity was the result of heavenly qualities, because he was the only heavenly person who ever lived. He was heavenliness itself. So "Abram" and more especially "Abraham" 1 mean heavenly traits.
The symbolism is also visible from that of a wife as truth attached to a heavenly quality, shown above at §1468.
The fact that it was heavenly truth, or truth from heavenly origins, can be seen from the mention of him first and of his wife second. Heavenly truth differs from truth that is heavenly. Heavenly truth originates in a heavenly quality, but truth that is heavenly originates with truth and is grafted onto heavenly qualities through religious knowledge. 2
Footnotes:
1. The original name of the biblical patriarch was Abram (אַבְרָם ['Aḇrām]), a name that probably means "exalted father." In Genesis 17:5, however, God changes Abram's name: "No longer will they call you by your name Abram, but your name will be Abraham, because I have made you father of an abundance of nations." There is a pun here (in the Genesis passage) on אֲבִר הָם ('aḇir hām): "chief of multitude" (see Brown, Driver, and Briggs 1996, page 4 right column, under אַבְרָם ['Aḇrām], Strong's 87). In §2010:1 Swedenborg explains that the change of name was necessary in order that the Lord or Jehovah could be represented: "The letter h was taken from Jehovah's name and inserted, and he was called Abraham. (The letter h is the only letter in Jehovah's name that involves divinity, and it means the I Am, or Being.)" He elsewhere notes that the Hebrew letter ה (hē, or h) implies infinity "because it is simply a breathing" (Revelation Unveiled 38; translated by George F. Dole). The renaming of Sarai (Abram's wife) as Sarah, like Abram's renaming as Abraham, means that the Lord was "shedding his human nature and putting on a divine nature" (Secrets of Heaven 2009, 2010). Furthermore, the marriage of Abraham, standing for divine goodness, and Sarah, standing for divine truth, represents the divine marriage of goodness with truth in the Lord, "which would give birth to divine rationality, or Isaac" (Secrets of Heaven 2063). For more on the names Abram and Abraham, see also note 2 in §64; for more on the meaning of letters in heavenly speech, see Revelation Unveiled 29. [RS, KK]
2. Swedenborg evidently has a distinction in mind between the phrases here translated "heavenly truth" (Latin coeleste verum, literally, "heavenly true"), and "truth that is heavenly" (Latin verum coeleste, literally, "true heavenly"). His works now and then feature such reversals of paired adjectives, and sometimes they recur; but although each of the two expressions in question here comes up individually in many other passages, they do not appear together again as a reversed pair. Determining the nuance of meaning and the precise distinction at which he is driving is therefore difficult. It can be noted, however, that that which is heavenly is intuitive, living, and deep, and that which is merely true is comparatively rote, rigid, and shallow; see §§81, 200-203, 310, 393, 597, 1470. In §9466 Swedenborg describes "truth from a heavenly origin" (verum ex origine coelesti). Elsewhere he also distinguishes truth that leads to good from truth that arises out of good, which may be a different way of expressing the same distinction; see, for instance, §§3669, 3688, 6295-6296, 7556, 9550. [LHC, JSR, SS]
