3057. 'At the time that women go out to draw water' means a state of instruction. This is clear from the meaning of 'time' as state, dealt with immediately above in 3056, and from the meaning of 'a woman who draws' or a drawer of water, as receiving instruction, dealt with below. What has been stated so far from 3054 onwards presents the meaning in the internal sense of the details related in this verse as a historical event. What those details embody in a single sentence however is not readily apparent to anyone who has not been taught anything about the natural man, or about the facts and matters of doctrine belonging there, or indeed about the way in which truths are raised up from the natural man into the rational and become rational. They are even less apparent to him if he does not know the nature of the rational when compared with the natural, that is, the nature of the concepts present in the rational when compared with the images in the natural.

[2] Those concepts in the rational do not come immediately into a person's view while he is living in the body. For it is the things in the natural which enter his awareness, rarely those in the rational except when a certain kind of light falls on those images in the natural, as when some mental power enters into and arranges into order the contents of a person's thought, or as when one gains an insight into the matter on which the mind is dwelling. Unless these and many other considerations are known, scarcely any intelligible explanation of what occurs in this verse is at all possible; such as that a holy ordering of general facts is meant, and also a removal from matters of doctrine so as to receive the truths of faith, and that this ordering and this removal occur during a state of obscurity, and that a state such as this is one of instruction.

[3] Nevertheless let a brief description be given, insofar as the matter can be understood, of what goes on in a person when he is being reformed by the Lord, for man's reformation is to some extent an image of what happened to the Lord when He was in the world, as stated above in 3043. While a person is being reformed the things that are general within his natural man are being ordered by the Lord so that they correspond to things that are in heaven. What correspondence is, and the fact that it is a relationship between spiritual things and natural, see 2987, 2989-2991, 3002. The things which are general are first of all ordered in such a way that those which are particular can be gradually introduced into them by the Lord, and then those that are specific into these. For unless the general are ordered, no order can come to the particular, because the latter enter into and confirm the former. Still less can order come to the specific, for these enter into the particular (which act as general things for them) and give light to the particular. This is what is meant by a holy ordering of general facts, and what is meant in the internal sense by making the camels kneel down. In this way they submit themselves to receive influx.

[4] While these things are being ordered in this manner matters of doctrine are removed since they are conclusions drawn from facts. For so to speak a dictate flows in by way of the rational, declaring that one thing is true, another not true - true because it agrees with general things when ordered, or not true because it disagrees. No other type of influx as to truths exists. Matters of doctrine are indeed present already, yet they are not really matters of doctrine until they are believed, but merely facts. When they are thought about therefore, any conclusion that is drawn is not from them but from other things concerning them. This is what is meant by being removed from matters of doctrine, and what is meant in the internal sense here by 'outside the city'. But this state is what is called an obscure state and is meant by 'evening time'; but once matters of doctrine have been confirmed so that they are believed morning, or a state of light arrives. All else in this verse is evident from what has now been stated.

5208. 'And Pharaoh awoke' means a state of enlightenment. This is clear from the meaning of 'awakening' as receiving enlightenment, dealt with in 3715; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the natural, dealt with previously, from which it is evident that 'Pharaoh awoke' means a state of enlightenment within the natural. The word enlightenment is used here to mean a general enlightenment coming from the celestial of the spiritual, and so from what is within. In that which is lower the enlightenment that comes or flows from what is within is a general one, but it becomes gradually less general, and at length becomes particular as truths from good are implanted there. For every truth from good is a shining light and a source of enlightenment. This now explains the statement made just above in 5206, that truths in the natural were banished. These truths are banished so that the natural may then be enlightened generally from what is within, after which truths in their own proper order are restored there within that general light, causing the enlightenment of the natural to be made a particular one.

[2] A state of agreement between a person's spiritual and his natural, or between his internal and his external, is effected in this manner. For truths are acquired first, but then they are so to speak banished. They are not in fact banished but are hidden, at which point what is lower has a general light shed upon it from what is higher, or what is without receives that light from what is within; and in that light the truths are restored to their own proper order. As a consequence of this all the truths there become images of the general whole to which they belong, and they then exist in a state of agreement. In every single thing that comes into being not only in the spiritual world but also in the natural world, what is general comes first; then less general aspects are gradually inserted, and at length particular details. Unless this kind of insertion or filling in takes place, nothing holds together at all; for whatever is not part of a general whole and does not depend for its existence on that general whole ceases to be anything, see 917, 3057, 4269, 4325 (end), 4329 (middle), 4345, 4383.