707. The text from here to verse 5 almost restates the contents of the last chapter, without much change. The same is true beyond verse 5. One who is unaware of the inner meaning of the Word necessarily believes that this is mere repetition. It happens in other passages in the Word too, especially in the prophets, where the same idea is expressed by two different phrasings and sometimes is even taken up yet again and redescribed. The reason, though, is the one given before [§§590, 683]: that we have two very distinct faculties called intellect and will and that the Word deals with each individually; such is the cause of the repetition.

What follows will make it clear that this is the situation here.

590. The fact that regret has to do with wisdom, and heartfelt grief with love, cannot be explained clearly to people's understanding. It can only be explained in terms of human experience and so in terms of appearances.

Every concept in our thinking contains something of both intellect and will; to put it another way, it contains something of thought and of love for that thought. If an idea does not draw to some extent on the will, or on love in the will, it is not an idea, because without love we cannot think. There is a kind of marriage, perpetual and inviolable, between thought and will. So the contents of the will or the objects of love in the will are present within the ideas that make up our thinking, or are at least attached to them. From this human experience it seems more or less possible to know (or rather to grasp in some measure) what lies at the heart of the Lord's mercy: wisdom and love.

As a result, the prophets (especially Isaiah) almost everywhere use two terms for every concept, one involving a spiritual quality and the other a heavenly one. ¹ The spiritual aspect of the Lord's mercy is wisdom and its heavenly aspect is love.

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