7195. 'And I also established My covenant with them' means the joining together that existed even then through the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'covenant' as a joining together, dealt with in 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 1996, 2003, 2021, 6804; and from the representation of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom 'with them' - those with whom the covenant had been established - refers here, as the Lord's Divine Human, dealt with in 6804, 6847. From this it is evident what the internal sense of these words is, that the proximate or most immediate meaning of them is the union of the Divine itself with the Divine Human; and that the meaning following on from this is the joining together of the Divine itself with those who belonged to the spiritual Church through the Divine Human. For as has been shown a number of times already, those who belonged to the spiritual Church were saved through the Lord's Divine Human, see 6854, 6914, 7035, 7091 (end). The expression even then is used to link the meaning here to what comes immediately before - to indicate that the joining together existed when they were in a state involving temptations and gave no thought to Divine things within the Church. For the Lord is more present within a state involving temptations than He is outside it, though that is not at all how it seems, 840.

1864. That 'on that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram' means the joining together of the Lord's Interior Man and His Internal Man is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as a joining together, dealt with already in 665, 666, 1023, 1038. Here, because in the internal sense the Lord is the subject, it means an interior conjunction. For the Lord advanced more and more towards conjunction and union with Jehovah His Father, till at length He became one, that is, the Human Essence itself also became Jehovah, who was the Lord's Internal itself. These things were represented by 'the covenant which Jehovah made with Abram'. Anyone may see that Jehovah never makes a covenant with man, for such would be contrary to the Divine. What is man but something base and filthy, which of itself thinks and does nothing but evil? All the good that he does comes from Jehovah. From this it becomes clear that this covenant, like every other covenant made with Abram's descendants, was nothing else than a representative of the Divine and of the heavenly things of the kingdom of God. This particular covenant made with Abram was a representative of the joining together of the Lord's Human Essence and His Divine Essence, that is, Jehovah. That it was a representative of the joining together of the Lord's Interior Man and His Internal Man, that is, Jehovah, is clear from what has gone before - that the Lord joined and united Himself more and more through the conflicts brought about by temptations and through victories. What the Interior Man was has been stated already, namely that which was between the Internal and the External.