5915. 'And I will sustain you there' means a constant influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial. This is clear from the meaning of 'sustaining', when spoken by Joseph, who represents the internal celestial, as an influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial. In the internal sense 'sustainment' is nothing else than the influx of goodness and truth from the Lord by way of heaven. This is how angels are sustained, and it is how a person's soul, that is, his internal man, is sustained. This sustainment is what the sustaining of the external man by means of food and drink corresponds to; and for this reason good is meant by 'food' and truth by 'drink'. The nature of this correspondence is also such that when a person is eating food the angels present with him think of goodness and truth; and, what is amazing, their ideas vary according to the different kinds of food that he eats. When therefore in the Holy Supper a person receives bread and wine the angels present with him think about the good of love and the good of faith, 3464, 3735, for the reason that 'bread' corresponds to the good of love and 'wine' to the good of faith. And because they correspond to them they also carry the same meanings in the Word.

[2] The fact that a person's soul, that is, his internal man, is sustained by spiritual food and drink, which are goodness and truth, is clear from the Lord's words in Moses,

Man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah. Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4.

'Utterance of the mouth of Jehovah' is goodness and truth that go forth from Him. In John,

Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. John 6:27.

In the same gospel,

The disciples asked Jesus, saying, Master, eat. He said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know. John 4:31-32.

And regarding drink, in the same gospel,

Jesus said, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow out from within him. ¹ John 7:37-38.

Notas de rodapé:

3464. 'And pointed out to him the reasons for the well which they had dug; and they said to him, We have found water' means interior truths obtained by means of these. This is clear from the meaning of 'a well' as the Word, dealt with in 3424, and from the meaning of 'water' as truths, dealt with in 2702, that is to say, truths drawn from the Word. 'Pointing out to him the reasons for the well which they had dug' accordingly means concerning the Word, the source of matters of doctrine; 'and they said to him, We have found water' means that it is in these, that is to say, in matters of doctrine, that interior truths reside; for as stated above, all matters of doctrine drawn from the literal sense of the Word include interior truths within them. For the literal sense of the Word is like a well with water in it, in that every single thing in the Word holds within itself the internal sense, which resides also in matters of doctrine drawn from the Word.

[2] The situation with matters of doctrine drawn from the literal sense of the Word is that when anyone possesses them and at the same time lives according to them a correspondence exists within himself. For the angels who reside with him are alive to the interior truths when he is alive to the exterior; and in this way he has communication with heaven by means of matters of doctrine, though this is conditioned by how good a life he leads. For example, when at the Holy Supper this person in simplicity thinks about the Lord from the words 'This is My body' and 'This is My blood' the angels residing with him have in mind love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour; for love to the Lord corresponds to the Lord's body and to the bread, while charity towards the neighbour corresponds to His blood and to the wine, 1798, 2165, 2177, 2187. This being the nature of the correspondence, there flows from heaven by way of the angels into that holiness present with the person at that time an affection which he receives according to the good within his life.

[3] Actually angels dwell with every person in the affection that belongs to his life, and so in the affection for the matters of doctrine according to which he lives, but never in the matters of doctrine with which his life is at variance. If his life is at variance with them, as it is if his affection is to gain position and wealth for himself by means of matters of doctrine, the angels in that case depart and spirits from hell dwell in that affection. These either instill their confirmations into him that favour self and the world - thus a false persuasion, which is such that he does not care at all whether a thing is true or false, provided people's attention is drawn to himself - or they take away all faith, in which case the doctrine on that person's lips is merely a sound prompted and fashioned by the fire of those loves.