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Secrets of Heaven #1556

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1556. All the way to the place where his tent had been before means to the holy traits that existed before he became steeped in knowledge. This can be seen from the symbolism of a tent as holy attributes of faith (dealt with previously at §§414, 1452) and from the remarks just above.

Consequently, it means that the Lord returned to the heavenly qualities he possessed before he had absorbed factual and religious knowledge, as can be seen from the words of the last chapter: "And Abram moved from there onto a mountain to the east of Bethel and spread his tent" (verse 8 [§§1450-1455]). This was before he set out for Egypt, that is, before the Lord became steeped in factual and religious knowledge.

  
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Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.

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Secrets of Heaven #1450

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1450. The fact that he moved from there onto a mountain to the east of Bethel symbolizes the Lord's fourth state as a youth can be seen from what comes above and below and so from the course of progress being described as well. Following that course, the Lord absorbed the heavenly aspects of love first of all, starting in infancy. The heavenly aspects are love for Jehovah, love for one's neighbor, and the innocence that marks both. Absolutely everything else flows from those attributes, which function as the actual fountains of life, since nothing else is more than a branch of that stream.

These heavenly traits are infused in us principally at the stage of childhood, from infancy up to adolescence. They are not infused along with any knowledge, because they filter in from the Lord and affect us before we have any idea what love is, or what an emotion is, as can be seen from the state of babies and then of children. In us such traits are called a remnant, and the Lord instills it in us and stores it away for use at later stages of our life. This remnant has been discussed several times before; for more on it, see §§468, 530, 560, 561, 660, 661.

Since the Lord was born like any other person, he was also led into heavenly capacities in orderly stages, from childhood to adolescence, and later into knowledge. The nature of the knowledge that he had is depicted in the current verse and is represented below by Abraham's stay in Egypt. 1

Footnotes:

1. The story of the stay in Egypt starts in Genesis 12:101459), although Abram has not as of that point been renamed Abraham (on this renaming, see note 1 in §1545). Egypt stands for factual knowledge, as indicated, for example, in §§991:2, 1071:6, 1072:3, 1151:5, 1156:1, 1163, 1164:2. [LHC, RS]

  
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Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.