497. And they have power over waters to turn them to blood. This symbolically means that people who turn away from these two essential elements falsify the Word's truths.

Waters symbolize truths (no. 50), and blood a falsification of the Word's truth (no. 379). Thus turning waters to blood symbolizes a falsifying of the Word's truths.

This has the same meaning as before, namely, that people who turn away from the two essential elements of the New Church cannot see anything but the falsities in which they are caught up, and if they use the Word to defend them, they falsify its truths.

6376. 'And the foal of his she-ass to the outstanding vine' means truth from the rational for the internal Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'the vine' as the spiritual Church, dealt with in 1069, 5113, so that 'the outstanding vine' means the internal Church (for the internal part of the Church is more outstanding than the external part of it); and from the meaning of 'the foal of a she-ass' as rational truth, dealt with in 2781. The external part of the Church is distinct and separate from the internal, in that it is located in the natural, thus in the external man, whereas the internal part is located in the rational, thus in the internal man. Members of the external Church are governed by truth, those of the internal Church by good. The former are motivated not so much by the good of charity as they are by the truth of faith, whereas the latter are motivated by the good of charity and from this by the truth of faith. Members of the internal Church are the ones meant by 'the outstanding vine', but members of the external Church are the ones meant by 'the vine'.