3690. 'Jacob went out from Beersheba' means life more remote from matters of doctrine that are Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'going' as living, dealt with in 3335, 3685, and so of 'going away' as living more remotely; and from the meaning of 'Beersheba' as doctrine that is Divine, dealt with in 2723, 2858, 2859, 3466. From this it is evident that 'Jacob went out from Beersheba' means life more remote from matters of doctrine that are Divine. Life is said to be more remote when it consists in external truths and is governed by these, as was the case in the early and later childhood of those who are being regenerated, dealt with just above in 3688.

[2] To demonstrate more fully what that life is, and what it is like, let a further brief statement be made about it. All the details of the historical tales contained in the Word are truths more remote from the actual matters of doctrine that are Divine. Nevertheless they are of service to young and older children in that by means of those tales they are led gradually into more interior matters of doctrine concerning what is true and good, and at length into Divine ones; for inmostly those tales hold what is Divine within them. When young children read them and in innocence are filled with affection for them, the angels present with them experience a delightful heavenly state, for the Lord fills those angels with affection for the internal sense and so for the things which the events of the historical tales represent and mean. It is that heavenly delight experienced by angels which flows in and causes the young children to take delight in those tales. In order that this first state may exist, that is, the state in early and later childhood of those who are to be regenerated, the historical tales in the Word have therefore been provided and written in such a way that every single detail there contains that which is Divine within them.

[3] How remote they are from matters of doctrine that are Divine may be seen from an example taken from those historical tales. When at first someone knows merely that God came down on Mount Sinai and gave Moses the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, and that Moses smashed them and God wrote similar commandments on another set of tablets, and this historical description in itself delights him, his life is governed by external truth and is remote from matters of doctrine that are Divine. Later on however when he starts to take delight in and have an affection for the commands or precepts there, and lives according to them, his life is now governed by actual truth; yet his life is still remote from matters of doctrine that are Divine. For the life he leads in keeping with those commands is no more than a morally correct life, the precepts of which are well known to everyone living in human society from the life of the community and from the laws existing there, such as worship of the Supreme Being, honouring parents, not committing murder, not committing adultery, and not stealing.

[4] But a person who is being regenerated is gradually led away from this more remote or morally correct life to life that comes closer to matters of doctrine that are Divine, that is, closer to spiritual life. When this happens he starts to wonder why such commands or precepts were sent down from heaven in so miraculous a fashion and why they were written on tablets with the finger of God, when they are in fact known to all peoples and are also written in the laws of those who have never heard anything from the Word. When he enters into this state of thinking he is then led by the Lord, if he belongs among those who are able to be regenerated, into a state more interior still, that is to say, into a state when he thinks that deeper things lie within which he does not as yet know. And when he reads the Word in this state he discovers in various places in the Prophets, and especially in the Gospels, that every one of those precepts contains within it things more heavenly still.

[5] In the commandment about honouring parents, for example, he discovers that when people are born anew, that is, are being regenerated, they receive another Father, and in that case become His sons, and that He is the one who is to be honoured, thus that this is the meaning which lies more interiorly in that commandment. He also gradually learns who that new Father is, namely the Lord, and at length how He is to be honoured, that is to say, worshipped, and that He is worshipped when He is loved. When a person who is being regenerated possesses this truth and lives according to it, a matter of doctrine that is Divine exists with him. His state at that time is an angelic state, and from this he now sees the things he had known previously as things which follow in order one after another and which flow from the Divine, like the steps of a stairway, at the top of which is Jehovah or the Lord, and on the steps themselves His angels going up and coming down. So he sees things that had previously delighted him as steps more remote from himself. The same may be said of the rest of the Ten Commandments, see 2609. From this one may now see what the life more remote from matters of doctrine that are Divine is, meant by the statement that Jacob went out from Beersheba.

4882. 'And went' means life. This is clear from the meaning of 'going' as living, dealt with in 3335, 3690. This meaning of 'going' in the internal sense as living does indeed seem quite remote from or unrelated to ideas man has which constitute his thought. The reason for this is that man dwells within space and time, and with these has formed the ideas comprising his thought, such as the idea of going, advancing, setting out, sojourning, or moving on. Now because these actions occur within both space and time, and as a consequence space and time have become embedded in ideas of those actions, man therefore finds it difficult to grasp that states of life are meant. But when his idea of those actions is relieved or divested of spatial and temporal elements the spiritual reality that is meant leaps out. For in the spiritual world or heaven nothing at all spatial or temporal enters the ideas they have, but instead aspects of a state of life, 1274, 1382, 2625, 2788, 2837, 3356, 3404, 3827, 4814. It does indeed appear to spirits and angels that they too move about, going from one place to another, and indeed exactly in the same way as it appears so to men. All the same, it is the changes taking place in their state of life that are responsible for this appearance. To them also, no less than to men, the appearance is that they live self-dependently, when in fact they do not live self-dependently but are dependent on the Lord's Divine, the source of every spark of life. Among angels these appearances are called real ones, because they seem in all reality to exist.

[2] I have on occasions spoken to spirits about these appearances, but those who are not governed by good, nor consequently by truth, do not wish to listen when told it is but an appearance that they live self-dependently; for their wish is to live self-dependently. But in addition to showing them from actual experience that they do not lead self-dependent lives and that every advance made from one place to another is a change to, and an advance made in, their state of life, I have also told them that for them it may be sufficient for them to know no other than that they live self-dependently, and that their life would be life no more if they did not live self-dependency. It would nevertheless be better for them to know what the situation really is, for in that case they would have the truth; and if they have the truth they also dwell in the light of heaven, since the light of heaven is the truth itself which flows from the Lord's Divine. Furthermore, if the truth existed with them in this way they would not claim that good was their own, nor would evil cling to them. Angels possessing that truth do not merely know it; they also have a perception of it.

[3] Intervals of time and space in the spiritual world are states of life, and every spark of life has its origin in the Lord, as the following experience may show. Each spirit and angel sees on his right those who are good and on his left those who are evil; this is so in whatever direction he turns himself. If he turns and looks eastwards he sees the good to the right and the evil to the left. The same happens if he turns and looks to the west, and likewise to the south or the north. This is the case with every spirit or angel, so that if there were two, and one of these turned and looked to the east and the other did so to the west, each would still see the good on his right and the evil on his left. Those far removed from, even behind the backs of, those who behold them are seen in those unchanging positions. From these considerations one may deduce clearly that every spark of life has its origin in the Lord, that is, that the Lord is within the life of everyone; for in the spiritual world the Lord is seen as the Sun, the good or sheep being on His right, and the evil or goats on His left. The same is therefore the case with each spirit or angel, for the reason, as stated, that the Lord exists in every spark of life. This is bound to look like a paradox to man, for as long as he is in the world man has ideas that are formed from worldly things, and therefore from what is spatial and temporal. But as stated above, in the spiritual world no ideas are formed from what is spatial and temporal but from the state belonging to affections and the thoughts flowing from these. It is for this reason also that the intervals of space and time in the Word mean states.