9332. 'And it will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you' means the flight of falsities arising from evils. This is clear from the meaning of 'driving out' as putting to flight, and so flight itself; and from the meaning of 'the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite' as falsities arising from evils, 'the Hivite' being falsity arising from mild evil, 6860, 'the Canaanite' falsity arising from rather serious evil, 4818, 8054, and 'the Hittite' falsity arising from the most serious evil, 2913, 6858. Regarding the nations in the land of Canaan, that they mean all evils and falsities in their entirety, see the places referred to in 9327.

7645. 'And one will not be able to see the land' means a darkening of the whole natural mind as a result. This is clear from the meaning of 'not being able to see as a darkening, that is, the failure to perceive truth; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as the natural mind, as above in 7644. But a brief statement must be made to explain why, when the outermost contents of the natural are laid waste, the whole natural mind is darkened as a result. The interior parts of a person's mind reach down into and are based on its lowest and outermost levels, where all its consecutive parts reside together. When there is nothing on the lowest levels but falsity and evil, truths and forms of good flowing from the interior parts into those lowest levels are flowing into evils and falsities there, as a consequence of which they are themselves turned into evils and falsities there. Therefore nothing but falsity and evil is apparent in the whole of the natural. This is what a darkening of the whole natural mind as a result, meant by 'not being able to see the land', describes. Here also is the reason why, when they have undergone vastation, hellish spirits are limited to the outermost parts of the natural. The inferior light they have, which is called the light of understanding, is not unlike the inferior light of this world, which in the next life becomes utterly thick darkness at the presence of the superior light of heaven. Since the outermost part of the natural, called the level of the senses, is filled with illusions and resulting falsities, and with self-indulgence and resulting evils, 6844, 6845, and since the hells are lit by that inferior light, the Lord provides a person when he is being regenerated with the ability to be raised above that level of the senses to more internal levels, see 6187, 6317, 7442.