21. Verses 4-5 And God saw that the light was good; and God made a distinction between the light and the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

The light is called good, because it comes from the Lord, who is good itself. 'The darkness' is those things which were there prior to the person's new conception and birth. They were seen as light, because evil was seen as good, and falsity as truth. But in reality they are darkness and things proper to that person which are lingering on. All things that are the Lord's, being things of light, are compared to the day, and all that are man's own, being those of thick darkness, are compared to the night, as is done many times in the Word.

4009. 'And he gave them into the hand of his sons' means that they were given to truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'sons' as truths, dealt with in 489, 491, 533, 2623, 3373. 'Giving into their hand' means giving them the right of control, for 'the hand' means power, 878, 3387. The truths which are meant by 'sons' in this case are those which are called sensory truths, for what the senses perceive as truths exist as the boundaries of the natural mind. For the natural degree of man's mind communicates on one side with sensory impressions which belong to the body and on the other side with the rational concepts which belong to the rational mind. By means of what lies in between a way of ascent so to speak is provided from sensory impressions which belong to the body, and are open in the direction of the world, up to the rational concepts which belong to the rational mind and are open in the direction of heaven. And in the same manner they provide a way of descent, that is to say, from heaven down to the world. This situation exists only with man. It is this ascent and descent that is dealt with in the internal sense of the chapters at this point in Genesis. And in order that every single thing may be expressed representatively, the rational is represented by Isaac and Rebekah, the natural by Jacob and both his wives, and the sensory awareness by the latters' sons. But since the sensory awareness as the ultimate degree of order incorporates everything prior to it each son represents something general in which those things are present, as shown above.