In Genesis 9:27, 'God spreading out Japheth' signifies his enlightenment. In a literal sense 'to spread out' signifies extending the borders, but in a spiritual sense, it signifies being enlightened. Enlightenment is the extension of the borders of wisdom and intelligence. In Isaiah 54:2, it signifies spiritual illumination or enlightenment. A member of the external church stretches out when he is instructed in the truths and goods of faith. As he is in charity, so he is more and more confirmed, and the more he is instructed, the more the cloud of his intellect is dissipated, which is where his charity and conscience resides.

(सन्दर्भ: Arcana Coelestia 1101)

27. Verse 9 And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.

Once a person knows of the existence of the internal man and of the external man, and knows that, contrary to appearance, truths and goods flow in from the internal man, or from the Lord by way of the internal into the external, then the things residing in him as cognitions of truth and good are stored away in his memory and registered among the facts there. For anything that finds its way into the memory or the external man, whether natural, spiritual, or celestial, lodges there as known fact, and from that place it is brought out by the Lord. These cognitions are 'the waters gathered together to one place' and are called 'seas'. But the external man itself is called 'the dry land' and immediately afterwards 'earth', as in the verses that follow.