The meaning of “back” is more literal when it is connected to objects. When someone takes something back or gives something back, the spiritual meaning is mostly centered on the object in question and the people performing the action.There are many instances in the Bible which describe people turning back, looking back or going back. In most cases it is a negative, sometimes devastatingly so (as with Lot’s wife, turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destructrion of Sodom). In general this represents our state when we are advancing to a new spiritual level and find ourselves wishing for the comfort and ease of the old one – going back represents a return to an earlier, inferior stage.

5624. 'And the silver that was put back in the mouth of your pouches you are to take back in your hand' means that through the truth freely given and present in the exterior natural they were to make themselves submissive as far as was possible. This is clear from the meaning of 'the silver that was put back' as truth freely given, dealt with in 5530; from the meaning of 'in the mouth of a sack' as in the opening of the exterior natural, dealt with in 5497; and from the meaning of 'in the hand' as within one's power, dealt with immediately above in 5623, thus as far as possible. Making themselves submissive through that truth is meant by the instruction that 'they were to put back' the silver; for when people in the spiritual world 'take back' truth to the Lord from whom they have received it freely they are making themselves submissive through it. But in what way they made themselves submissive through such truth is evident from the conversation, included in verses 18-24, which they had with the man who was over Joseph's house.