387. And with death. That this signifies the consequent extinction of spiritual life, is plain from the signification of death, as denoting the extinction of spiritual life (concerning which see above, n. 78, 186). That this is here signified by death is plain from the series of things in the internal sense; for it is said that power was given unto them to kill with the sword, with famine, and with death: and by the sword is signified falsity destroying truth; by famine, the deprivation of the knowledges of truth and good; whence by death is signified the extinction of spiritual life, for where falsity reigns, and where there are no knowledges of truth and good, there is no spiritual life; for it is acquired by the knowledges of truth and good applied to the uses of life. For man is born into all evil and the falsity thence, therefore he is also born entirely ignorant of all spiritual knowledges; in order, therefore, that he may be led from the evils and the falsities thence, into which he is born, and be led into the life of heaven, and be saved, it is necessary that he should learn the knowledges of truth and good, by which he can be introduced [into spiritual life] and become spiritual. From this series of things in the internal sense it is evident, that by death is here signified the extinction of spiritual life; this also is signified by spiritual death.

4154. 'And he went out of Leah's tent and came into Rachel's tent' means the holiness of that truth. This is clear from what has been stated immediately above. Truths, like goods, divide into exterior and interior ones, for there is an internal man and an external man. The internal man's goods and truths are called internal goods and truths, while the external man's are referred to as external goods and truths. The internal man's goods and truths exist in three degrees, as they do in the three heavens; and the external man's goods and truths likewise exist in three degrees and correspond to those internal ones. Indeed there are goods and truths which stand midway between the internal man and the external, which are intermediaries, for without those that are midway or intermediary no communication is possible. There are goods and truths proper to the natural man which are called external goods and truths, and there are also sensory goods and truths which belong to the body and so are the most external. These goods and truths existing in three degrees belong to the external man and, as has been stated, correspond to the same number of goods and truths of the internal man, which will in the Lord's Divine Providence be dealt with elsewhere.

[2] The goods and truths belonging to each degree are entirely distinct and separate from one another and not in the least muddled up. The more interior are ones which give form, and the more exterior are ones which receive it. But although they are entirely distinct and separate from one another they are not seen by man as being distinct. Anyone who is sensory-minded cannot do other than regard all interior things, and indeed internal things themselves, as being merely objects perceived with the senses; for he sees things from the senses and so from a very external point of view. Interior things cannot possibly be seen from the most external, but the most external can be seen from interior things. The natural man, that is, one who bases his thinking on facts, cannot see other than that the natural things on which his thinking is based are inmost things, when in reality they are external. And the more interior man, who bases his judgements and conclusions on analytical arguments revealed by natural facts, in a similar way believes that they are the inmost things which man possesses, because they seem to him to be the inmost. Actually they come below his rational ideas, and so in relation to genuine rational ideas are more exterior or lower. Such is the manner of man's mental grasp of things. The matters which have just been discussed concern the natural or external man existing in three degrees. But those which belong to the internal man also exist, as has been stated, in three degrees, as they do in the three heavens.

[3] From these considerations that have now been mentioned one may see what is implied by truths, meant by 'the teraphim', not being found in the tents of Jacob, Leah, or the servant-girls, but in Rachel's tent, that is, within the holiness of the affection for interior truth. All truth which comes from the Divine exists within holiness, for it cannot be otherwise, seeing that truth which comes from the Divine is holy. It is called holy from the affection, that is, from the love which flows in from the Lord and causes truth to stir a person's affection.