6226. 'And sat on the bed' means which was turned towards the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'the bed' as the natural, dealt with in 6188. The reason why 'Israel sat on the bed' means that spiritual good was turned towards the natural is that in the last verse of the previous chapter, Chapter 47, 'Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed' meant that spiritual good turned itself towards things of the interior natural, see 6188, and therefore moving himself from the head and sitting on the bed means that spiritual good turned itself towards the natural. Nothing intelligible can be said to show what turning itself to the interior natural is, or to the exterior natural, because very few people know of the existence of the interior natural and the exterior natural, or that thought takes place at one time in the first, at another in the second. And people who do not know these things do not stop to reflect on them and consequently cannot have gained any knowledge of this particular matter by anything they have experienced. Yet this turning to one and then to the other goes on in everyone, though with variations; for at one time a person's thought is raised to things on a higher level, and at another it comes down to those on a lower level, so that at one time his thought looks upwards, at another time downwards.

[2] Apart from all this anyone can see that 'Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed' and that after that 'he sat on the bed' are matters which would have been too trivial for mention in the most holy Word unless they had held some arcanum within them. That arcanum cannot be brought to light except by means of the internal sense, except therefore through a knowledge of what each individual word means in the spiritual sense, that is, the sense that angels understand. For angels thoughts are not based, as men's are, on worldly, bodily, and earthly objects, but on heavenly ones. The nature of the difference between those two kinds of objects is particularly evident from correspondences, which are the subject at the ends of a number of chapters.

6188. 'And Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed' means that it turned towards things of the interior natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowing oneself' here as turning oneself; and from the meaning of 'the bed' as the natural, dealt with below. Thus 'the head of the bed' is that within the natural which is higher, that is, more internal; for wherever 'the head' is mentioned in the Word, what is more internal is meant. This is in relation to the body, which is more external. In saying that it turned towards things of the interior natural one means that natural truth, which is 'Jacob', was to be raised up to spiritual good, which is 'Israel', in accordance with what was stated and explained above in 6183.

[2] The reason 'the bed' means the natural is that the natural exists beneath the rational and serves it as a kind of bed. For the rational reclines so to speak on the natural, and since the natural is accordingly what is spread beneath, it is therefore called 'the bed', as also in Amos,

"As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so will the children of Israel dwelling in Samaria be rescued, on the corner of a bed and on the end of a couch." Amos 3:12.

'On the corner of a bed' stands for within the lowest part of the natural, 'on the end of a couch' for within sensory awareness. For the people of Israel, whose capital city was Samaria, represented the Lord's spiritual kingdom. One speaks of that kingdom being, as is said of father Israel here, 'over the head of the bed', because spiritual good, which is represented by 'father Israel', is 'the head of the bed'. But when people turn away from that good to what belongs to the lowest part of the natural and to what belongs to sensory awareness, one speaks of them being 'on the corner of a bed and on the end of a couch'. The same prophet speaks of "Those who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch out on their couches, but feel no grief over the ruin of Joseph". Amos 6:4, 6.

'Beds of ivory' are the pleasures of the lowest part of the natural that are pursued by haughty people. 'Feeling no grief over the ruin of Joseph' stands for feeling no concern at all that good from the internal has been reduced to nothing. In David,

If I come into the tent of my house, if I go up onto the couch of my bed . . . Psalms 132:3.

'The tent of my house' stands for the holiness of love, 414, 1102, 2145, 2152, 3312, 4128, 4391, 4599. 'Going up onto the couch of a bed' stands for up onto the natural, to truth that derives from the good of love. 'Coming into the tent of one's house and going up onto the couch of one's bed' is a prophetical saying which, as anyone may see, nobody can understand without the internal sense.