1489. 'Because of Sarai, ¹ Abram's wife' means because of the truth that was to be allied to the celestial. This is clear from the meaning of 'a wife' and therefore of 'Sarai his wife' as truth that was to be allied to the celestial, dealt with above at verse 12. The implications are as follows: Unless the facts which have performed the use in childhood of making the person rational are destroyed so that they are nothing, truth cannot possibly be joined to the celestial. Those first facts are for the most part earthly, bodily, and worldly. No matter how Divine the commandments may be that a child absorbs, he nevertheless gains from them no other mental picture than what may be obtained from such facts. Therefore as long as those very lowly facts from which he gets his ideas remain with him, the mind cannot be raised any higher. It was just the same with the Lord, for He was born like any other and had to receive instruction like any other, though according to the Divine order such as has been stated already. Contained within these details regarding Abram in Egypt is a description of the Divine order, of the way in which with the Lord the external Man was joined to the Internal to make the External Man Divine as well.

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