24. Verse 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

After the Spirit of God, which is the Lord's mercy, has brought out into the daylight cognitions of truth and good, and has shed the light of dawn to reveal that the Lord does exist, and that He is good itself and truth itself, and that no good or truth exists except from the Lord, a distinction is at that point made between the internal man and the external man, and so between cognitions which reside with the internal man and the facts which belong to the external man. The internal man is called 'an expanse, and the cognitions residing with the internal man are called 'the waters above the expanse', while the facts belonging to the external man are called 'the waters below the expanse'.

[2] Until his regeneration starts a person is not aware of even the existence of the internal man, let alone the identity of the internal man. Submerged in bodily and worldly concerns he imagines there is no difference between the two. Furthermore he has submerged in those same concerns the things that belong to the internal man and has made one thorough obscurity out of things that are distinct and separate. For this reason it is first said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters', and then, 'Let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters', and not a distinguishing of the waters. But this is followed immediately by the statement, Verses 7-8, And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.

[3] The second thing therefore that a person notices when being regenerated is that he is starting to become aware of the existence of the internal man, or that what reside in the internal man are goods and truths which are the Lord's alone. And since the external man during regeneration is such as still imagines that he is the source of the good deeds he performs, or of the truth he utters, and since such a person, by means of them, is led by the Lord to do good and to speak truth as if they were his own, therefore the identification of those under the expanse comes first, and the identification of those above the expanse follows. It is also a heavenly arcanum that the Lord uses those things that are man's own - both his illusions of the senses and his desires - to lead and direct him towards the things that are goods and truths. Every single movement of regeneration is accordingly a progression from evening to morning - from external man to internal, that is, from earth to heaven. This is why the expanse, or internal man, is now called 'heaven'.

5962. 'And he sent his brothers away, and they went' means a concealment from view. This is clear from the meaning of 'sending away as removing them from himself, consequently his ceasing for that reason to be present with them any longer; and from the meaning of 'going' or going away as living, also living further away from, and abandoning too, dealt with in 3335, 3416, 3690, 4882, 5493, 5696, thus becoming concealed from view. The fact that a removal from the internal celestial and so a concealment of it is referred to now is clear from what follows in the internal sense.

[2] Anyone who does not know the nature of the state of life experienced by spirits and angels in heaven cannot know why a concealment of truth and good is referred to now, when immediately before this they had had the light of truth and good shining on them. The heavenly state is such that spirits and angels pass through morning, midday, and evening, also twilight and morning again, and so on. For them it is morning when the Lord is present, blessing them with evident happiness; and at this time they enjoy a perception of good. Midday has come when they dwell in the light of truths; and it is evening when they are removed from them, in which case the Lord seems to them to be more remote and to be concealed from them. All in heaven undergo and pass through these alternating states; without them they cannot be led to ever greater perfection. For those alternating states establish contrasts for them, and from those contrasts they gain more perfect perception, for from those contrasts they know what does not constitute happiness since they know from them what is not good and what is not true.

[3] It is astonishing, and rightly so, that one state never is or ever will be exactly like another, also that one spirit or angel does not pass through changes of state that are the same as those of another, for the reason that with respect to good and truth one spirit or angel is not exactly like another, even as no one person's face is identical to another's. Even so the Lord makes a unified whole out of those varying individuals. It is a general rule that every whole which has any specific character is made up of varying parts which are brought, as if through agreement and harmony with one another, into such a state of unanimity that they all present themselves as a unified whole. In heaven the unified whole which results or rather the process of being unified is effected by means of love and charity; see also 3241, 3267, 3744, 3745, 3986, 4005, 4149, 5598. In the Word the concealment meant by 'Joseph sent away his brothers, and they went' is called evening, which among the angels has come when they do not perceive that the Lord is present. For heaven possesses a constant perception of the Lord's presence; but when angels pass through a state in which they lack that perception they do not, as before, feel an affection for good or see truth. This causes them distress, but shortly after that, twilight comes, and so morning.