3860. 'Leah conceived and bore a son' means spiritual conception and birth from what is external to what is internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'conceiving and bearing' in the internal sense as being regenerated, for a person who is being regenerated is conceived and born anew. Regeneration is for' this reason called rebirth, but that rebirth is spiritual. A person is indeed born a human being from his parents, but he does not become truly human until he is born again from the Lord. Spiritual and celestial life is what makes a person truly human, for that life distinguishes him from animals. This conception and birth is what is meant in the Word by the conceptions and births of all who are mentioned there, and by the words used here, 'Leah conceived and bore a son'. As to its being the generations and births of faith and love that are meant, see 613, 1145, 1255, 2020, 2584, 3856. Those conceptions and births take place from what is external to what is internal, and this is meant by 'Leah conceived and bore', for 'Leah' represents the affection for external truth, 3793, 3819, and 'Reuben' the truth of faith, which is the first stage of regeneration and the external from which it begins. The implications of all this will be evident from all that follows regarding Jacob's children by Leah and by Rachel.

3013. The process of introduction is described in the internal sense as follows: When the state was reached in which all things had been rearranged by the Lord into a Divine celestial order so that Divine Truth might be joined to the Divine Good of His Rational - a re-arrangement achieved through the normal channel from the natural man, that is to say, from the facts, cognitions, and matters of doctrine in the natural man - truths were at that point summoned from there by means of the Lord's Divine influx, introduced into good in the rational, and made Divine. Thus the Rational was made Divine by the Lord as regards truth as well as regards good.