2154. Verse 3 And he said, My Lord, if now I have found grace in your eyes, do not, I beg of you, pass from over your servant.

'And he said' means that He so thought. 'My Lord' means the Three in One. 'If now I have found grace in your eyes' means the respectful regard that became a feature of the Lord's state when He took notice of that perception. 'Do not, I beg of you, pass from over your servant' means His intense desire that what He had begun to perceive should not pass away, 'servant' meaning the Lord's human before it was made Divine.

2080. That 'God said' means the reply that was perceived is clear from the meaning of 'saying' as perceiving, dealt with just above in 2077. And because in the previous verse the words 'Abraham said' were used, which meant perception, and in this verse the words 'God said' (or replied) occur, a perceived reply, that is, a reply received in the form of perception, is consequently meant. All perception entails both a proposition and a reply, the perception of the two being expressed here in the historical sense by the phrases 'Abraham said to God' and 'God said'. That 'God's saying' means perceiving, see 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, and in various places above in this chapter.