Arcana Coelestia (Elliott): AC 1889

1889. It is similar in this chapter with the names Abram, Sarai, Hagar, and Ishmael. What these include within themselves becomes clear from the Contents and after that from the explanation of each name in what follows. They are however things such as cannot be explained easily and intelligibly, for the subject covered by those names is the Lord's Rational - how it was conceived and born, and the nature of it before it had been united to the Lord's Internal, which was Jehovah. The reason this cannot be explained easily and intelligibly is that people at the present day do not know what the internal man is, what the interior man is, or what the exterior man is. When one speaks of the rational or of the rational man some idea can be formed of these, but when one speaks of the rational as that which lies between the internal and the external, few if any can grasp it. Nevertheless since the subject in the internal sense of this chapter is the way in which the Lord's Rational Man was conceived and born from an influx of the Internal Man into the External Man - for this is the subject embodied within the historical descriptions involving Abram, Hagar, and Ishmael and yet to prevent the ideas presented in the explanation that follows from becoming utterly strange and unintelligible, let it be recognized that with everyone there exists an internal man, there exists a rational man which is situated in between, and there exists an external man, and that these three are quite distinct and separate from one another. For these matters see what has been stated already in 978.

GENESIS 16

And Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no child. And she had an Egyptian servant-girl, and her name was Hagar.

And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now, Jehovah has prevented me from bearing; go in now to my servant-girl; perhaps I shall be built up from her; and Abram hearkened to Sarai's voice.

And Sarai, Abram's wife (uxor), took Hagar her Egyptian servant-girl, after Abram had been dwelling ten years in the land of Canaan, and she gave her to Abram her husband (vir) as his wife (mulier).

And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And she saw that she had conceived, and her mistress was despised in her eyes.

And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant-girl into your bosom, and she saw that she had conceived, and I am despised in her eyes. May Jehovah judge between me and you!

And Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your servant-girl is in your hand; do to her what is good in your eyes. And Sarai humiliated her, and she fled from her face.

And the angel of Jehovah found her near a spring of water in the desert, near the spring on the road to Shur.

And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant-girl, where are you coming from, and where are you going? And she said, From the face of Sarai my mistress I am fleeing.

And the angel of Jehovah said to her, Return to your mistress and humble yourself beneath her hands.

And the angel of Jehovah said to her, I will multiply your seed greatly and it will not be numbered for multitude.

And the angel of Jehovah said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael because Jehovah has hearkened to your affliction.

And he will be a wild-ass man; his hand will be against all, and the hand of all against him; and he will dwell in opposition to ^a all his brothers.

And she called the name of Jehovah who spoke to her, You are a God who sees me; for she said, Have I not also here seen after Him who sees me?

Therefore she called the spring, The spring of the Living One who sees me; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bared.

And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

And Abram was a son of eighty-six years when Hagar bore Ishmael for Abram.

Notes

^a lit. against the faces of

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