Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3294

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3294. 'And two peoples will be separated from your bowels' means resulting truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'people' as truth, dealt with in 1259, 1260, and from the meaning of 'being separated from the bowers' as arising from there. When in the Word birth is the subject the expression 'going out of the womb or belly' is used in reference to the mother, but 'being separated from the bowels' in reference to the father. For womb and loins are used in reference to the things of love, that is, of good, but when the expression 'being separated from the bowels' is used the origin of truth is meant. Here therefore, where the subject is good, the words 'two nations from your womb' are used, and when truth is the subject, 'two peoples will be separated from your bowels'; and by these words the origin of truth from good is meant in the internal sense. The expression 'two peoples' is used because just as good is interior and exterior, 3293, so also is truth. Interior truth within the natural is that which is joined to the interior good of the natural, while exterior truth is that which is joined to the exterior good of the natural. Interior truth is called natural truth, whereas exterior truth is called sensory truth. What exactly these types of truth are, however, will in the Lord's Divine mercy be clear later on where Jacob is the subject, for Jacob represents both of these types of truth.


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