3087. Verses 17-20 And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me sip now a little water from your pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord. And she hastened and lowered her pitcher on to her hand and gave him a drink. And she finished giving him the drink and said, I will draw for your camels also until they have finished drinking. And she hastened and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels.

'The servant ran to meet her, and said' means investigation by Divine Good. 'Let me sip now a little water from your pitcher' means to see whether it was possible for any truth from that source to be joined to it. 'And she said, Drink, my lord' means an affirmative response. 'And she hastened and lowered her pitcher on to her hand' means the submission of the recipients which was accomplished by power. 'And gave him a drink' means introduction. 'And she finished giving him the drink' means the subsequent stage. 'And said, I will draw for your camels also until they have finished drinking' means the affirmative response as regards the enlightenment of all facts within the natural man. 'And she hastened and emptied her pitcher into the trough' means the separation of the affection for truth which was being introduced into Divine good. 'And ran again to the well' means a lower affection for truth. 'And drew for all his camels' means by which general facts were enlightened.

4967. 'An Egyptian man' means natural truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a man' as truth, dealt with in 3134, and from the meaning of 'Egypt' as factual knowledge in general, dealt with immediately above in 4964, 4966. And since 'Egypt' means factual knowledge it also means the natural, for all the factual knowledge present with a person constitutes his natural since it resides in his natural man, and includes knowledge about spiritual and heavenly realities. The reason for this is that the natural is the position within which and from which he sees those realities. Those which he does not see from that position are unintelligible to him. But a regenerate person, who is called spiritual, sees them in one way, an unregenerate person, who is called merely natural, in another. In the case of a regenerate person factual knowledge has the light of heaven shed upon it, but not so in the case of an unregenerate one. The light shed on the unregenerate person's factual knowledge comes by way of spirits governed by falsity and evil, a light which, it is true, begins as the light of heaven but among such spirits is reduced to a dim light like that of evening or night. Indeed spirits of this kind, and consequently men like them, see in the way owls do - clearly at night but dimly during the daytime. That is, they see falsities clearly and truths dimly, and therefore worldly things clearly but heavenly ones dimly, if at all. From this one may recognize that genuine factual knowledge is natural truth; for all genuine factual knowledge that is of the kind meant in the good sense by 'Egypt' is natural truth.