. Abraham answered and said. That this signifies the Lord’s thought from the human, is evident from the signification of "Abraham" in this chapter, as being the Lord in respect to the human, concerning which several times above.
. Behold I pray I have taken upon me to speak unto my Lord, and I am dust and ashes. That this signifies the humiliation of the human as to its relative quality, is evident. The Lord‘s state in the human (or His state of humiliation), and the Lord’s state in the Divine (or His state of glorification), have been treated of several times before; and it has been shown that in His state of humiliation the Lord spoke with Jehovah as with another; but in His state of glorification, as with Himself (n. 1999). As in the present passage Abraham represents the Lord in His human, it is said in that state that relatively to the Divine the human is dust and ashes; on which account that state is also called His state of humiliation. The humiliation results from the self-acknowledgment that one is relatively of such a character. By the human in this place is not meant the Divine Human, but the human which the Lord derived from the mother, and which He utterly expelled, and put on in its stead the Divine Human. It is the former human, namely, the maternal human, of which "dust and ashes" are here predicated. (n. 2159).
GENESIS 18:27previous
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