2033. Thou shalt keep My covenant. That this signifies still closer union, is evident from the signification of a "covenant," as being union and conjunction (treated of before, at verses 2, 4, and 7; also in Part First, n. 665, 666, 1023, 1038). The repeated mention here of "covenant," so frequently mentioned before, denotes a closer union. In the historical sense, which relates to Abraham, nothing else can be said than that he is to keep the covenant; but in the internal sense, in which the Lord is treated of, what is historical vanishes, and the things that can be predicated of Him succeed in its place, which relate to a closer union. The unition of the Lord's Human Essence with His Divine Essence was not effected all at once, but through the whole course of His life, from infancy to the last of His life in the world. Thus He ascended continuously to glorification, that is, to union; according to what is said in John: