1924. Verse 7 And the angel of Jehovah found her near a spring of water in the desert, near the spring on the road to Shur.

'The angel of Jehovah found her' means thought in the interior man, 'the angel of Jehovah' here being the interior thought which came from the Lord's Internal. 'Near a spring of water in the desert' means natural truth that has not yet acquired any life. 'Near the spring on the road to Shur' means that this truth was an assemblage of things which come from facts.

3701. 'And behold, the angels of God going up and coming down on it' means an infinite and eternal communication and the consequent joining together - a going up, so to speak, from what is lowest, and after that, when order has been inverted, a coming down to it. This is clear from the meaning of 'the angels' as some aspect of the Lord's Divine meant by the expression 'angels' when used in the Word, dealt with in 1925, 2319, 2821, 3039. The aspect meant here is Divine Truth. This is clear from the fact that they are called 'the angels of God', for the name God is used when truth is the subject in the internal sense, but Jehovah when good is the subject, see 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822. This is why although the name Jehovah is used directly after this in the phrase 'Jehovah standing above it', they are nevertheless referred to here as 'the angels of God', since the subject is truth from which good springs, represented by 'Jacob' here, as stated many times above. As regards the expression 'going up and coming down on the stairway' meaning in the highest sense infinite and eternal communication and the consequent joining together, this is clear without further explanation. But one cannot speak of a communication between, and the consequent joining together of the Lord's Divine itself and His Divine Human unless at the same time one calls these attributes infinite and eternal, for in the Lord everything is infinite and eternal - infinite so far as Being (Esse) is concerned and eternal so far as Manifestation (Existere) is concerned. From what has been stated up to now it is evident that 'a stairway set up on the earth, and its top reaching to heaven, and behold, the angels of God going up and coming down on it' means in a nutshell a going up so to speak from what is lowest, and after that, when order is inverted, a coming down to it.

[2] The nature of this going up and coming down becomes clear from what has been stated and shown above in 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3607, 3610, 3665, 3690. But because this order - which comes into effect when a person is being regenerated and which is described in the internal sense here and in what follows - is completely unknown in the Church, let the nature of it be illustrated further: It is well known that a person is born into the same disposition as his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, going back for centuries, and so into hereditary evil gradually accumulated by all those before him, so much so that there is nothing but evil in what he does when he acts from himself. As a consequence both his understanding and his will have been totally spoiled and of himself he does not will anything good at all and therefore does not understand anything true at all. That which he calls good, indeed believes to be good, is in fact evil, and that which he calls the truth, indeed believes to be the truth, is in fact falsity. Take, for example, loving himself more than others, wanting things to be better for himself than for others, desiring what belongs to someone else, and considering only himself and not others unless he himself will benefit. Because he desires these things of himself he indeed calls them good and also true. And what is more, if anyone harms or tries to harm these things which by him are called good and true, he hates him and is also filled with thoughts of revenge. He desires and also seeks that person's ruin, and takes delight in this insofar as he actually strengthens such intentions in himself, that is, as frequently as he actually puts them into effect.

[3] When such a person enters the next life his desires remain the same. The actual disposition which he has acquired in the world by the life he led remains, and that delight is perceived plainly by others. Consequently he is unable to be in any heavenly community where everyone wants things to be better for others than for himself; but he is in some community of hell whose delight is similar to his own. It is that disposition of his which needs to be rooted out while he is living in the world, something that cannot possibly be achieved except through regeneration from the Lord, that is, through receiving quite another will and therefore quite another understanding - by becoming a new person so far as both those powers of mind are concerned. But for this to come about he must first of all be born like a young child again, learn what evil and falsity are, and learn what good and truth are, for without knowledge or awareness of these he is unable to have any good conferred on him. Indeed of himself he does not acknowledge anything else as good except that which is evil, nor anything else as truth except that which is false.

[4] To make a person new, cognitions are instilled into him such as are not completely contrary to those he has already - for example, the idea that all love starts in himself; the idea that one should consider oneself first and others only after that; the idea that those people who are outwardly poor and wretched should be helped irrespective of what they are like inwardly; and that similarly widows and orphans should be helped solely because they are called such; and at length the idea that enemies in general should be helped irrespective of who they may be; and also the idea that by acting in these ways one is able to merit heaven. These and other ideas like them are the cognitions proper to the early childhood of his new life. They are such that because they derive to some extent from his previous life, or the disposition belonging to his previous life, they also derive to some extent from his new life into which he is being led in this way. They are consequently such as allow into themselves things that contribute towards the formation of a new will and of a new understanding. They are the lowest forms of good and truth, and it is with these that people who are being regenerated start out. And because these lowest forms of good and truth allow more interior truths into themselves, that is, truths closer to Divine truths, falsities which a person had previously believed to be truths are also rooted out.

[5] People who are being regenerated however do not learn such things simply as matters of knowledge but as matters of life, for they practice those truths. But their practice of them has its beginnings in the new will which the Lord is instilling, though they are totally unaware of it. And to the extent they welcome that new will they also welcome those cognitions, put them into practice, and believe them. But to the extent they do not welcome that new will they are indeed able to learn such truths but not to put them into effect since they consider them purely as matters of knowledge and not of life.

[6] That state is the state of early and later childhood as regards the new life which is to replace the previous life, but the state of the early and later youth of that life is a state when no attention is paid to any person's outward presentation of himself but to what he is like with regard to good - first of all with regard to it in public affairs, then in private affairs, and at length in spiritual, at which point he starts to possess and to love good first and foremost, and from good the person. And when after that he is more perfect still his concern is to aid those who are governed by good, his help depending on the kind of good present with those whom he helps. At length he takes delight in helping them. And because he takes delight in good he also takes pleasure in ideas that support it. Those supporting ideas he acknowledges as truths, which also constitute the truths of his new understanding which flow from the forms of good which belong to his new will.

[7] To the same extent as he takes delight in that good and takes pleasure in those truths he also feels an aversion to the evils of his previous life and a displeasure in its falsities. This is why things belonging to the previous will are now separated from those belonging to the new will, and those belonging to the previous understanding from those belonging to the new understanding. The determining factor in this separation is not the affection for knowing them, but the affection for doing them. As a consequence he now sees that the truths belonging to his early childhood in relation one to another have existed inversely and that those same truths have been reorganized little by little into another order, that is to say, their interrelationship has been changed so that those which initially occupied the first place now occupy the last. In this way he sees that by means of those truths which belonged to his early and later childhood the angels of God so to speak went up by means of a stairway from earth to heaven, whereas now by means of the truths belonging to his adult life the angels of God so to speak come down by means of the stairway from heaven to earth.

3913. 'She said, Behold, my maidservant Bilhah' means the affirming means, which has its place between natural truth and interior truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a maidservant', and also of 'a servant-girl' as the affection for the cognitions which belong to the exterior man, dealt with in 1895, 2567, 3835, 3849, and in this particular case since that affection is the means by which interior truths become joined to natural or external truths, 'a maidservant' therefore describes the affirming means that has its place between these; and from the representation of 'Bilhah' as the nature of that means. The two servant-girls which Rachel and Leah gave to Jacob as wives for producing offspring represented and meant in the internal sense nothing else than something which is of service, in this case something serving as the means by which those two things are joined together, namely interior truth with external truth, for 'Rachel' represents interior truth, 'Leah' external, 3793, 3819. Indeed by means of the twelve sons of Jacob twelve general or principal requisites are described here by which a person is introduced into spiritual and celestial things while he is being regenerated or becoming the Church.

[2] Actually when a person is being regenerated or becoming the Church, that is, when from being a dead man he is becoming a living one, or from being a bodily-minded man is becoming a heavenly-minded one, he is led by the Lord through many states. These general states are specified by those twelve sons, and later by the twelve tribes, so that the twelve tribes mean all aspects of faith and love - see what has been shown in 3858. For any general whole includes every particular and individual detail, and each detail exists in relation to the general whole. When a person is being regenerated the internal man is to be joined to the external man, and therefore the goods and truths which belong to the internal man are to be joined to those which belong to the external man, for it is truths and goods that make a person a human being. These cannot be joined together without means. These means consist in such things as take something from one side and something from the other, and act in such a way that insofar as a person moves closer to one the other plays a subordinate role. These means are meant by the servant-girls - Rachel's servant-girls being the means available from the internal man, Leah's the means available from the external man.

[3] The necessity for means by which the joining together is effected may be recognized from the consideration that of himself the natural man does not agree at all with the spiritual but disagrees so much as to be utterly opposed to the spiritual. For the natural man regards and loves self and the world, whereas the spiritual man does not, except insofar as to do so leads to the rendering of services in the spiritual world, and so he regards service to it and loves this service because of the use that is served and the end in view. The natural man seems to himself to have life when he is promoted to high positions and so to pre-eminence over others, but the spiritual man seems to himself to have life in self-abasement and in being the least. Not that he despises high positions, provided they are means by which he is enabled to serve the neighbour, society as a whole, and the Church. Neither does the spiritual man view the important positions to which he is promoted in any selfish way but on account of the services rendered which are his ends in view. Bliss for the natural man consists in his being wealthier than others and in his possessing worldly riches, whereas bliss for the spiritual man consists in his having cognitions of truth and good which are the riches he possesses, and even more so in the practice of good in accordance with truths. Not however that he despises riches, because these enable him to render a service in the world.

[4] These few considerations show that on account of their different ends in view the state of the natural man and the state of the spiritual are the reverse of each other, but that the two can be joined one to the other. That conjunction is effected when things which belong to the external man become subordinate and are subservient to the ends which the internal man has in view. In order that a person may become spiritual therefore it is necessary for the things belonging to the external man to be brought into a position of subservience, and so for ends that have self and the world in view to be cast aside and those that have the neighbour and the Lord's kingdom to be adopted. The former cannot possibly be cast aside or the latter adopted, and so the two cannot be joined, except through means. It is these means that are meant by the servant-girls, and specifically by the four sons born to the servant-girls.

[5] The first means is one that affirms, or is affirmative towards, internal truth; that is to say, it affirms that it really is internal truth. Once this affirmative attitude is present, a person is in the first stage of regeneration, good from within being at work and leading to that spirit of affirmation. That good cannot pass into a negative attitude, nor even into one of doubt, until this becomes affirmative. After this, that good manifests itself in affection; that is to say, it causes the person to feel an affection for, and delight in, truth - first through his coming to know this truth, then through his acting in accordance with it. Take for example the truth that the Lord is the human race's salvation. If the person does not develop an affirmative attitude towards this truth, none of the things which he has learned about the Lord from the Word or in the Church and which are included among the facts in his natural memory can be joined to his internal man, that is, to the truths that are able to be truths of faith there. Nor can affection accordingly enter in, not even into the general aspects of this truth which contribute to the person's salvation. But once he develops an affirmative attitude countless things are added and are filled with the good that is flowing in. For good is flowing in constantly from the Lord, but where no affirmative attitude exists it is not accepted. An affirmative attitude is therefore the first means and so to speak first dwelling-place of the good flowing in from the Lord. And the same is so with all other truths called the truths of faith.