4342. And he divided the children over unto Leah. That this signifies the arrangement of external truths under their affection, is evident from the signification of “dividing over unto,” as being arrangement; from the signification of “children” or “sons,” as being truths (see n. 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623, 3373); and from the representation of Leah, as being the affection of exterior truth (see n. 3793, 3819). Hence the “children” or “sons” here denote truths of exterior affection, consequently external truths. Those truths are said to be external which are called sensuous truths, that is, those which flow in immediately from the world through the senses of the body. But interior truths (which are signified by the children of Rachel) are those which are interiorly in the natural, and are more nearly under the view of the rational, and to which fallacies and their illusions do not so strongly adhere as they do to sensuous truths. For the more interiorly truths go, the more are they purified from worldly and earthly things.

533. As nothing more is related concerning Lamech than that he begat sons and daughters, which are the conceptions and births of such a church, we shall dwell no longer on the subject. What the births were, or the “sons and daughters” appears from the church; for such as is the church, such are the births from it. Both the churches called “Methuselah” and “Lamech” expired just before the flood.