8652. 'Because the God of my father was my help' means the Lord's mercy and presence in the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'father' as the Church in respect of good, 5581, and as the Ancient Church, 6050, 6075, 6846, 'the God of my father' being the God of the Ancient Church, who was the Lord, 6846, 6876, 6884; and from the meaning of 'help', when it has reference to the Lord, as mercy, since help that comes from Him is due to His mercy and also to His presence. For where mercy is received, there He is present. His presence is primarily in the Church, because that is where the Word is and the Lord's presence comes through the Word.

6884. 'The God of your fathers' means Him who was the God of the Ancient Church. This is clear from what has been stated above in 6876, where similar words occur. In the external sense written as history the words 'the God of their fathers' are used to mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but in the internal sense to mean Him who was the God of the Ancient Church. That the latter, not the former, is what is meant in the internal sense may be recognized from the consideration that the historical record contained in the Word cannot find its way into heaven. For the historical record in the Word is concerned with what is natural and worldly, but those in heaven possess exclusively spiritual ideas and thus they understand in a spiritual Way that which is written as history. And when the description of what is worldly, constituting the sense of the letter of the Word, reaches only the outskirts of heaven it is converted into the spiritual sense. Some recognition that this is so may also be gained from the consideration that man too on many occasions converts what he is being told into the kinds of things that occupy his entire thinking; that is, one whose thoughts are unclean turns them into what is unclean, and one whose ideas are clean into what is clean. So it is then that by 'the God of your fathers' those in heaven do not perceive the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for in heaven they have no thought of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only of the Lord who is represented by them. It is for this reason that He who was the God of the Ancient Church is what those words mean.