1443. The implications of a first perception being meant by 'the oak-grove of Moreh' are as follows: Residing with man there are intellectual concepts, rational concepts, and factual knowledge. The intellectual concepts form the inmost parts of his mind, the rational concepts form the interior parts, and the factual knowledge forms the exterior parts. They are called his spiritual endowments, which occur in the order in which they have been mentioned. The intellectual concepts of the celestial man are compared to 'a garden consisting of trees of every kind'; rational concepts to 'a forest consisting of cedars and other trees like them', such as those that grow in Lebanon; while factual knowledge is compared to 'oak-groves' on account of the interlocking boughs that are a feature of oak trees. The trees themselves meant perceptions - 'the trees of the garden of Eden in the east' meant inmost perceptions, that is, those of intellectual concepts, as shown already in 99, 100, 103; 'the trees of the forest of Lebanon' meant interior perceptions, that is, those of rational concepts, whereas 'oak trees' meant exterior perceptions, that is, those of facts that belong to the external man. This explains why 'the oak-grove of Moreh' means the Lord's first perception, for He was still only a boy and His spiritual powers had not yet developed interiorly. In addition the oak-grove of Moreh was also the place which the children of Israel came to first when they crossed the Jordan and saw the land of Canaan. Of this it is said in Moses,

You shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal. Are not these across the Jordan, beyond the road towards the seeing of the sun, in the land of the Canaanite who dwells in the plain towards Gilgal, beside the oak-groves of Moreh? Deuteronomy 11:29-30.

These words as well mean the first experience of perception, for the entry of the children of Israel represents the entry of those who have faith into the Lord's kingdom.

865. That 'he sent out a raven, and it went out going back and forth' means that falsities were still giving trouble is clear from the meaning of 'a raven' and from the meaning of 'going back and forth', dealt with in the paragraphs following this. Here the description is of the second state following temptation of the person who is to be regenerated, when the truths of faith start to appear as a first glimmer of light. This is the kind of state in which falsities are continually giving trouble. It is a state resembling the morning twilight when the obscurity of the night is still lingering on. That state is therefore meant here by 'the raven'. The falsities residing with a spiritual man, especially before he has been regenerated, are as thick patches of cloud, the reason being that he is incapable of knowing any truth of faith except from things that have been revealed in the Word where all things are stated in a general way. General statements there are nothing else than patches of cloud, for any one general statement embraces thousands of details, and each detail thousands of finer points. Those finer points constituting details are what light up the general statements. These have never been so revealed to mankind because they are both indescribable and also in-comprehensible, and so can neither be acknowledged nor believed. In fact they are contrary to the illusions of the senses which govern man, and to whose destruction he does not readily consent.

[2] The case is altogether different with the celestial man, who has perception from the Lord. In him details and their finer points can be implanted. Take, for example, the consideration that true marriage is a marriage of one man and one wife; and that such a marriage is representative of the heavenly marriage, and as a consequence can contain heavenly happiness, something that is not possible when one man has several wives. The spiritual man, who knows of this from the Word of the Lord, gives his assent to it and so acquires a conscience which dictates that being married to several wives is a sin. Beyond this his knowledge does not go. The celestial man however perceives thousands of details which so confirm the point that the thought of marriage to several makes him shudder. When the spiritual man's knowledge amounts to simply a general view of things, and his conscience is formed from that general view, and when the general statements of the Word are adapted to the illusions of the senses, it is clear that countless falsities which cannot be dispersed will attach themselves and worm their way in. These falsities are meant here by 'the raven that went out going back and forth'.