The idea of "lifting" is used in a number of different ways in the Bible. In general, it means connecting with a higher spiritual state for strength or enlightenment, though as with many verbs the context makes a great deal of difference. One of the most common uses comes as people lift up their eyes, which usually means coming into a state of perceiving what is true from the Lord. Lifting a hand or a rod means wielding power, making it common in the performance of miracles. Lifting the feet means elevating the most natural, external aspects of our day-to-day lives. Lifting objects means elevating them to higher uses, or sometimes just to protect them (Noah's Ark was "lifted up" in this sense). And so forth. In the negative sense, people can lift things up -- towers or other human structures -- representing a deeper state of the love of self.

2161. That 'let now a little water be taken' means that they were to draw near and bring themselves down from Divine things nearer to His intellectual concepts does not become clear so much from these words alone that they should take a little water, as from the whole train of thought in this verse and from its connection with what comes before and after. From the actual words used in this verse no one could possibly know that 'let now a little water be taken, and wash your feet, and recline under the tree' meant that the Divine was to bring itself down nearer to that state of perception which was the Lord's at that time and was to put on something natural so that His perception might be improved. Indeed not the smallest trace of this arcanum is evident in these words if understood historically. That such is nevertheless their meaning in the internal sense, and that angels perceive them in that way, I know for certain.

[2] This shows what great and deep arcana lie concealed in the Word. The same is further evident from the meaning of the words in the internal sense, that is to say, from the meaning of 'water' as intellectual concepts, from the meaning of 'feet' as natural things, and from the meaning of 'tree' as perception. Once these things are understood, then what is meant in the internal sense - namely that which has been stated - becomes clear from the train of thought and from its connection with what comes before and after. That 'waters' means factual knowledge and rational concepts, consequently intellectual concepts, has been shown in Volume One, in 28, 680, and may also become clear from very many other places in the Word, which would take up too much space if they were introduced here.