2850. 'And like the sand which is on the seashore' means a whole multitude of correspondent facts. This is clear from the meaning of 'the sea' as facts in general or a gathering together of them, dealt with in 28, 2120, and from the meaning of 'the sand' as facts individually and separately. Facts are compared to 'the sand' because in the internal sense the particles of stone from which the sand is formed mean facts, 643, 1298. Both comparisons are made here - that they will be multiplied 'as the stars of the heavens' and 'as the sand on the seashore 'because 'stars', or cognitions, are related to the rational, whereas 'the sand of the seashore', or facts, are related to the natural. When the things that belong to the rational man, namely the goods and truths present in cognitions, so exist in accordance with the things that belong to the natural man, that is to say, with facts, that they make one or mutually support each other, they in that case correspond. The Lord brings man's rational concepts and his natural images into this state of correspondence when He regenerates him, that is, makes him spiritual. It is for this reason that both the stars of the heavens and the sand on the seashore are mentioned here. Otherwise one phrase would have been sufficient.

1914. That 'may the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant-girl into your bosom' means its unwillingness to take any blame is clear without explanation. In the internal sense these words embody within themselves the truth that the Lord perceived this first rational to be such as despised intellectual truth, and for that reason He reproached it. The Lord did indeed think from intellectual truth, as stated above in 1904; and because that truth was superior to the rational, He was able to perceive and see the nature of the rational, that is to say, that it held that truth in contempt.

[2] The Lord's being able from the interior man to perceive and see the nature of the new rational within Himself becomes clear from the fact that what is interior is able to perceive that which occurs in the exterior, or what amounts to the same, what is higher is able to see that which occurs in that which is lower, but not the reverse. Moreover, those who have conscience are able and are accustomed to do the same, for when anything contrary to the truth constituting conscience enters their thought or the intentions of their will, they not only recognize it for what it is but also pour blame upon it; indeed it grieves them that their own nature is such. This is all the more true of those who have perception, for perception is more interior within the rational. What then could the Lord not do who had Divine celestial perception and whose thought sprang from the affection for intellectual truth which is above the rational? Therefore He could not be anything else but righteously angry since He knew that no evil or falsity at all stemmed from Himself and that from the affection for truth He strove anxiously with all His might so that the rational might be pure. From this it becomes clear that the Lord did not despise intellectual truth, yet perceived that the first rational with Him did so.

[3] What thinking from intellectual truth is cannot be explained intelligibly, all the less so because nobody except the Lord has ever thought from that affection and that kind of truth. Anyone who thinks from them is above the angelic heaven, for the angels of the third heaven do not think from intellectual truth but from the interior part of the rational. But to the extent that the Lord united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, He thought from Divine Good itself, that is, from Jehovah.

[4] The early fathers of the Most Ancient Church, who had perception, thought from the interior rational. The fathers of the Ancient Church, who did not have perception but conscience, thought from the exterior or natural rational. But all who do not have conscience never think from the rational at all, since they have no rational however much they appear to do so. Instead they think from the sensory and the bodily experience of the natural. People who do not have conscience are unable to think from the rational for the reason, as has been stated, that they have no rational. The rational man is one in whom the good and truth of faith are the substance of his thought and never one who thinks in opposition to these. Those in whom evil and falsity are the substance of their thought are insane as to their thought and therefore the rational cannot be attributed to them.