2583. 'And his women servants' means as regards affections for subsidiary matters of doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of 'women servants' as affections for rational truths and for factual knowledge, dealt with in 1895, 2567, in this case for matters of doctrine because they are attributed to the doctrine of faith, for these women servants were Abimelech's, who means the doctrine of faith, 2509, 2510. The exact meaning of anything that is mentioned depends on that to which it is attributed.

2510. That 'Abimelech' is the doctrine of faith which has regard to rational things becomes clear from the fact that he regarded Sarah not as Abraham's wife but as his sister, and 'Sarah when a sister' means rational truth, 2508. The same is also evident from the verses that follow below, for there the question whether the doctrine of faith has its origin in the rational or in the celestial is the subject. 'Abimelech' therefore means the doctrine of faith which has regard to rational things. Doctrine is said to regard rational things when nothing is acknowledged as the truth of doctrine except that which can be grasped by reason, so that when anything that is a matter of doctrine is looked at it is seen from the rational. But the fact that the doctrine of faith does not have a rational but a celestial origin is, in what follows, the teaching of the internal sense.