2767. That 'so it was after these events' means after these things had taken place is clear without explanation. These things, which have received explanation, are those to do with Abimelech and Abraham's making a covenant in Beersheba, and finally with Abraham's establishment of a grove in Beersheba, by which was meant that human rational ideas were allied to the doctrine of faith, which in itself is Divine. Now the subject becomes the temptation of the Lord as regards the Rational, meant by Isaac; for by means of temptations the Lord made His Human Divine, and thus His Rational in which the human has its beginnings, 2106, 2194. He made it Divine by suppressing and driving out everything in the rational which was merely human, that is, which was the maternal human. The present verse serves as the link between the matters dealt with in the previous chapter and those dealt with in this; hence the words that occur here, 'So it was after these events, that God tempted Abraham'.

2194. 'And behold, Sarah your wife will have a son' means the Rational that was to be Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'a son', also of 'Sarah', and of 'Isaac' as well, who was to be born to her. Both 'a son' and 'Sarah', and 'Isaac' too, mean that which is a feature of the Lord's Rational; for '5011' means truth, see 489, 491, 533, 1147, 'Sarah' rational truth, 2173, and 'Isaac' the Divine Rational, 1893, 2066, 2083. With everyone the human has its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, as stated in 2106, so that the Lord's Human too had its beginnings there. That which was above it was Jehovah Himself, which is not the case with anyone else at all. Since the human has its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, and since the Lord made the whole of the human with Him Divine, He first made the rational itself Divine from the inmost. And that rational, having been made Divine, is represented and meant, as has been stated, by 'Isaac'.