2457. There is no need to provide a detailed explanation of these verses since this has been provided for the most part in the previous chapter, and before that. These verses have been added and inserted here so as to make it quite clear that the separation of the good from the evil, and the salvation of the good but condemnation of the evil, was achieved solely through the Lord's Divine Essence united to His Human Essence. Otherwise all those people represented here by Lot would also have perished along with the rest. This is what the following words are used to mean, 'When God was destroying the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot away out of the midst of the overthrowing when He was overthrowing the cities in which Lot dwelt'. In the internal sense this means that all those governed by good were saved through the Lord's Divine Essence united to His Human Essence, as also were those governed by truth that had good within it, who are represented here by 'Lot', while those governed by falsities derived from evils perished, even though those who were saved were also governed by such falsities and evils. In this way these verses link together the things that occur in this chapter with those in the previous chapter; that is to say, 'Abraham', that is, the Lord during that state, made intercession on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who are meant by 'the fifty', 'the forty-five', 'the forty', 'the thirty', 'the twenty', and 'the ten', who, as was explained in the previous chapter, mean all in their order who are governed by good, as well as those governed by truth in which there is some measure of good.