10685. 'And he was with Jehovah forty days and forty nights' means temptations before the Church, worship, and the Word exist on an internal level. This is clear from the meaning of 'forty days and nights', when it has reference to the Church with a person, as states involving temptation, dealt with in 730, 862, 2272, 2273, 8098. Before the Church, worship, and the Word exist on an internal level is meant because temptations are the means by which the internal level in a person, called the internal man, is opened up to that person and handed over to him. Consequently everyone who is being regenerated undergoes temptations. The reason why temptations are the means by which the internal level is opened up and brought into existence is that while a person is embroiled in temptations, which are conflicts against evils and falsities, the Lord flows in from the interior and fights on the person's behalf. This may be recognized by a person from the fact that at the times when he is embroiled in temptations he inwardly offers resistance; for unless he did so he would not be victorious but would go under. He is not conscious of that inward resistance during temptations, because while embroiled in them he is in the dark, on account of the evil and falsities of evil that assail him; but after temptations those with a perception of truth are conscious of it. For while a person is living in the world he has no knowledge of the things which the Lord introduces into him on an internal level, because at that time, before he enters the next life, he thinks on the level of the external or natural man, and not perceptibly on an internal level. Nevertheless he ought to know and acknowledge, when victorious in temptations, that all the fighting was done not by himself but by the Lord on his behalf.

3089. 'Let me sip now a little water from your pitcher' means to see whether it was possible for any truth from that source to be joined to it. This is clear from the meaning of 'sipping' as an activity similar to that meant by 'drinking', but taking in only a small amount because it was to be an investigation - for 'drinking' means perceiving, see 3069, and also in the internal sense being communicated and joined together, and has reference to what is spiritual just as 'eating' has reference to what is celestial, 2187, 2343; and from the meaning of 'water' as truth, dealt with in 680, 739, 2702. Here therefore 'let me sip now a little water from your pitcher' means an investigation to see whether it was possible for any truth from that source to be joined. 'A pitcher' is a recipient which has truth in it and from which truth is obtained, 3068, 3079. The reason for this investigation was that the initial affection for truth also carried with it something from the mother that was to be separated, 3040, 3078. With anyone who is to be regenerated his initial affection for truth is largely impure, for it holds within it the desire to satisfy a purpose and an end that have himself in view, the world, glory in heaven, and similar things which regard himself and not the common good, the Lord's kingdom, still less the Lord Himself. Such affection inevitably comes first. Nevertheless the Lord purifies it gradually so that at length falsities and evils are removed and banished so to speak to the circumference. But they have nevertheless served as means.