7045. 'And cut off the foreskin of her son' means the removal of filthy kinds of love, as a result of which the internal is laid bare. This is clear from the meaning of 'cutting off' as removing; from the meaning of 'the foreskin' as earthly and bodily love which defiles spiritual and celestial love, dealt with in 3412, 4462; and from the meaning of 'son' as the truth which the representative Church possesses. For the meaning of 'son' as truth, see 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623, 3773; and the reason why the truth which that Church possesses is meant here is that 'Zipporah' represents that Church and calls him 'her son'. She also uses him to show the actual nature of that nation and consequently the actual nature of its worship. 'The foreskin' means filthy kinds of love for the following reason: The loins and genital organs correspond to conjugial love, 5050-5062; and since they correspond to conjugial love they also correspond to every kind of celestial and spiritual love, 686, 4277, 4280, 5054. The foreskin therefore corresponds to the kinds of love that are very much external, which are called bodily and earthly loves. If these loves are devoid of the internal kinds of love that are called spiritual and celestial loves, they are filthy, as they were with that nation which had externals without an internal. The words 'without an internal' are used, and by this is meant no acknowledgement of truth and no affection for good, thus no faith and no charity; for these are qualities that belong to the internal man and from them spring ways of exercising charity, which are external forms of good. The Lord speaks of that internal, when it is devoid of faith and charity and yet full of evils and falsities, as that which is 'empty', in Matthew 12:43-45. This is what 'external without an internal' serves to describe. So then 'the foreskin' means the kinds of love that are very much external; therefore when those kinds of love have been removed, meant by Zipporah's cutting off the foreskin, the actual nature of them is seen, and the internal is accordingly laid bare.

3769. 'And there was a large stone over the mouth of the well' means that it, that is to say, the Word, was closed up. This becomes clear without explanation. The Word is said to be closed up when it is understood purely according to the sense of the letter and everything there is taken for doctrine. It is even more closed up when those things are acknowledged as doctrine which show favour to the desires that go with self-love and love of the world, for these especially roll the large stone over the mouth of the well, that is, they close the Word up. In this case people neither know nor wish to know that any interior sense exists within the Word. Yet they can see that the Word has an interior sense from the many places where the interior sense is used to explain the literal, and also from the generally accepted teachings within the Church which, by means of various explanations, are brought to bear on the literal sense.

[2] What is meant by the Word's being closed up becomes particularly clear from the Jews who explain every single thing literally, and as a consequence believe that they have been chosen in preference to everybody else in all the world, and that the Messiah is coming who will lead them into the land of Canaan and will exalt them above all nations and peoples of the world. For the Jews are governed by loves of an earthly and bodily nature, which are such that they close the Word altogether so far as interior teachings are concerned. What is more, they do not even know whether any heavenly kingdom exists, whether they are going to live after death, what the internal man is, or even the existence of anything spiritual, let alone that the Messiah has come to save souls. The fact that the Word is in their case closed up may also be seen quite clearly from the consideration that although they live among Christians they nevertheless accept nothing whatever of Christian teaching, in accordance with the following words in Isaiah,

Say to this people, Hearing hear, and do not understand; and seeing see, and do not comprehend. Make the hearts of this people fat and their ears heavy, and plaster over their eyes. And I said, How long, O Lord? And He said, Until cities have been laid waste till no inhabitant [is left], and houses till no man [is left], and the land has been laid waste as a desolation. Isaiah 6:9-11; Matthew 13:14-15; John 12:40-41.

[3] To the extent that someone is under the influence of self-love and love of the world, and of the desires that go with these loves, the Word is to him closed up. For those loves have self as the end in view, an end which fosters natural light but extinguishes heavenly light. As a result people see clearly the things that belong to self and the world but nothing whatever of those that belong to the Lord and to His kingdom. When this is so they may indeed read the Word, but their end in view is the increase of personal position and wealth, or that they may be seen by others; or else they read it because it is the done thing and therefore merely from force of habit, or they read it as a religious duty, but without any amendment of life in view. To these people the Word has in different ways become closed up, for some so closed that they do not wish to know anything at all apart from that which their own teachings - whatever these may be - declare.

[4] If anyone were to say, for example, that the power of opening and of shutting heaven has not been granted to Peter but to faith rooted in love, which faith is meant by Peter's keys, they would never acknowledge it because self-love and love of the world stand in the way. Or if anyone were to say that the saints ought not to be worshipped but the Lord alone, they would not accept that either. Nor would they believe it if someone were to say that the bread and wine in the Holy Supper mean the Lord's love towards the whole human race and man's love for the Lord in return. And if anyone were to say that faith - other than the good of faith, which is charity - does not achieve anything, they would give a completely contrary explanation. And so it would be with everything else. People like these can see nothing at all of the truth contained in the Word and do not wish to see it. Instead they adhere rigidly to their own doctrinal opinions. They do not even wish to hear of the existence of the internal sense in which the holiness and the glory of the Word reside. Indeed when they hear about the existence of it they are revolted because of their detestation of the mere mention of it. So the Word has been closed up. Yet the Word is such that it is open right into heaven, and through heaven towards the Lord, and is closed only in relation to man, that is, insofar as he is subject to the evils of self-love and love of the world where the ends in view of his life are concerned, and is subject to false assumptions resulting from those evils. From this one may see what is meant by 'a large stone over the mouth of the well'.