5962. 'And he sent his brothers away, and they went' means a concealment from view. This is clear from the meaning of 'sending away as removing them from himself, consequently his ceasing for that reason to be present with them any longer; and from the meaning of 'going' or going away as living, also living further away from, and abandoning too, dealt with in 3335, 3416, 3690, 4882, 5493, 5696, thus becoming concealed from view. The fact that a removal from the internal celestial and so a concealment of it is referred to now is clear from what follows in the internal sense.

[2] Anyone who does not know the nature of the state of life experienced by spirits and angels in heaven cannot know why a concealment of truth and good is referred to now, when immediately before this they had had the light of truth and good shining on them. The heavenly state is such that spirits and angels pass through morning, midday, and evening, also twilight and morning again, and so on. For them it is morning when the Lord is present, blessing them with evident happiness; and at this time they enjoy a perception of good. Midday has come when they dwell in the light of truths; and it is evening when they are removed from them, in which case the Lord seems to them to be more remote and to be concealed from them. All in heaven undergo and pass through these alternating states; without them they cannot be led to ever greater perfection. For those alternating states establish contrasts for them, and from those contrasts they gain more perfect perception, for from those contrasts they know what does not constitute happiness since they know from them what is not good and what is not true.

[3] It is astonishing, and rightly so, that one state never is or ever will be exactly like another, also that one spirit or angel does not pass through changes of state that are the same as those of another, for the reason that with respect to good and truth one spirit or angel is not exactly like another, even as no one person's face is identical to another's. Even so the Lord makes a unified whole out of those varying individuals. It is a general rule that every whole which has any specific character is made up of varying parts which are brought, as if through agreement and harmony with one another, into such a state of unanimity that they all present themselves as a unified whole. In heaven the unified whole which results or rather the process of being unified is effected by means of love and charity; see also 3241, 3267, 3744, 3745, 3986, 4005, 4149, 5598. In the Word the concealment meant by 'Joseph sent away his brothers, and they went' is called evening, which among the angels has come when they do not perceive that the Lord is present. For heaven possesses a constant perception of the Lord's presence; but when angels pass through a state in which they lack that perception they do not, as before, feel an affection for good or see truth. This causes them distress, but shortly after that, twilight comes, and so morning.

4149. 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' means that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good. This is clear from the meaning of 'gods' which in this case are the teraphim, as truths, dealt with in 4111, not however the truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but to the affection which 'Rachel' represents. It is because those truths are meant by 'gods' here that the reference to Rachel's having stolen them is added. And more concerning them appears further on which would not have been recorded if that deed of hers had not entailed arcana which are evident solely in the internal sense. And because the truths under discussion here were not truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but those belonging to the affection for truth which 'Rachel' represents, the words 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' therefore mean that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good.

[2] The implication of this arcanum is that all spiritual good has its own truths, for wherever that good exists truths are present also. Regarded in itself good is a single whole, but it is made various by means of truths. Indeed truths may be compared to the fibres which compose some organ of the body. It is the form which these fibres take that determines the nature of the organ and therefore of its function. And this - that is to say, its function - is dependent on the life which flows in through the soul, a life that comes from good which originates in the Lord. So although good is a single whole it nevertheless varies with each individual; it is so varying that it is never exactly the same with one person as with another. This also is why one person's truth cannot possibly abide in another person's good. For all the truths residing with someone in whom good is present intercommunicate and produce some form or other. For this reason one person's truth cannot be transferred to another, for when it is transferred it passes into the form that is peculiar to the recipient and takes on a different appearance. But this arcanum demands exploration which is too deep to enable it to be revealed in just a few words. This explains why the mind of one person is never exactly like another's, but that the differences in people's affections and ways of thinking are as numerous as the people themselves. It also explains why the whole of heaven consists of angelic forms which are endlessly varying. Arranged by the Lord into the form heaven takes, those forms act as a single whole. For no single whole is ever composed of parts that are identical but of those that are various existing in a single form and which make one in keeping with that form. This now shows what is meant by the statement that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his own - 'Jacob's' - good.