3084. And came up. That this signifies elevation, is evident from the signification of “coming up,” as being to be elevated. Being elevated is said of passing from what is lower to what is higher, and also therefore of passing from what is exterior to what is interior, which is the same thing; for what is lower or higher in a human idea is exterior or interior in the angelic idea; for instance, heaven, which appears to man higher, but to angels interior; and the natural with man-this is exterior relatively to his spiritual; and so again is the spiritual relatively to the celestial; or what is the same, memory-knowledge, which is of the natural man, is exterior relatively to truth, and truth is exterior relatively to good; and therefore memory-knowledge relatively to truth is called a veil and also clothing, and truth likewise is so called relatively to good; and it is from this that one is said to “go up” to Jerusalem, but to “go down” from Jerusalem; also to “go up from Jerusalem to Zion,” and to “go down from Zion to Jerusalem;” for by what is round about Jerusalem are signified the exteriors of the church, but by Jerusalem the interiors, and by Zion the inmosts. As in the passage before us in the internal sense there is described the first of the elevation of truth out of the natural man to the rational, it is therefore said first that the affection of truth represented by Rebekah “went down to the fountain,” and then that she “came up;” for, as before said (n. 3074), the Divine love flows into the affection of good, and from this into the affection of truth, and vivifies and enlightens the things that are in the natural man, and then disposes them in order (this is signified by “going down”); and by virtue of this, truths are raised out of the natural man into the rational, and are conjoined with the good there (this is signified by “going up”).

3074. What is contained in these three verses in the internal sense, may in some measure be seen from the explication. But as these things are disconnected, that which they involve in their series cannot appear unless they are all collected together into a single idea, and the mental view is then withdrawn from the sense of the letter; for so long as the attention is there, not only is the idea confused, but the mind is also held in doubt; and so far as it is in doubt, it is obscured. A summary description is here given of the process in which truth appears by means of memory-knowledges, and is elevated from them out of the natural man into the rational, and becomes rational truth (in the Lord, Divine); namely, that this is effected by the influx of the Divine love into the Human, from which comes the affection of truth in which is innocence. By virtue of such an influx, the memory-knowledges in the natural man were enlightened, and the truths made their appearance that were to be elevated into the rational and there conjoined with the good of the Divine love. The same things are described more particularly in what follows. But he who does not know that all things in general and in particular are disposed, even in the natural man, by an influx of love, and from this of an affection in which there is innocence, can have but a very obscure idea, if any, of what was said above and of what has now been said.