Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3954

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3954. 'God hearkened to Leah' means Divine love. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearkening to someone', when it has reference to God or the Lord, as Divine love; for 'hearkening to someone' means carrying out what he prays for and desires. And because He acts from Divine Good, and Divine Good comes from Divine love, Divine love is the meaning in the highest sense of 'hearkening to someone'. For the situation with the internal sense of the Word is that when the literal sense rises up towards heaven and there enters the sphere where the Lord is the source of thought, and where the Lord and things that are His are the subject of thought, the literal sense finally becomes, as perceived by the angels, the internal sense. For to the angels the internal sense is the Word, for which the sense of the letter serves as the groundwork or means of their thinking. Indeed the sense of the letter is unable to reach the angels because it deals in most places with worldly, earthly, and bodily matters, about which angels are unable to think since they live among things of a spiritual and celestial nature and so they are far above the former. A Word has been given therefore which is able to serve mankind and at the same time angels. In this respect the Word is different from all other literature.


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