5434. 'And they said to him, No, sir, we are upright men' means that truths are indeed present within them. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying to him, No, sir' as a denial that they existed for the sake of gain, meant by Joseph's words 'you are spies', 5432, and a denial that nothing would please them more than to know it for themselves that they are not truths, meant by Joseph's words 'you have come to see the nakedness of the land', 5433; and from the meaning of 'we are upright men' as that truths are indeed present within them, 'uprightness' meaning truth in the internal sense here, as also many times elsewhere in the Word. This meaning - that truths are indeed present within them - follows from the whole train of thought; for in the case of people who have acquired to themselves the truths known to the Church, doing so for the sake of their own material gain, those truths are not indeed truths to them, as shown above in 5433. But even so, truths can indeed be present within them, such truths known to the Church as a general whole being meant by 'the sons of Jacob'. The reason 'upright men' means truths quite apart from persons is that in the internal sense everything is withdrawn from ideas about persons; an idea in the literal sense describing a person becomes an idea describing some spiritual reality, see 5225, 5287. The reason for this is that otherwise the reader's thought and consequent speech are inevitably distracted and diverted from that spiritual reality and contemplation of it to details that have to do with the person. What is more, there is no other way in which the thought and consequent speech can become more universal, no other way in which just a number of ideas, let alone ideas that are countless and indescribable, can be taken in simultaneously, as is the case among angels. But although such spiritual images are withdrawn from ideas of persons they still have to do with persons; that is to say, they have to do with people in whom those spiritual realities are present. This is why 'upright men' means truths.

5287. 'A man with intelligence and wisdom' means with regard to inflowing truth and good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a man with intelligence' as truth, and of 'a man with wisdom' as accompanying good. It should be recognized that 'a man with intelligence and wisdom' is not used in the internal sense to mean any actual man such as this but to mean, without reference to any actual person, that which makes someone intelligent and wise - to mean truth and good therefore. In the next life, especially in the heavens, all thought and consequently all language consists of images that do not involve any actual persons, so that thought and language there are universal and, compared with other forms of them, are free of limitations. For insofar as thought and language limit themselves to specific persons, especially to their personal characteristics, and insofar as they limit themselves to names and also to words, that thought and language become less universal; for these then limit themselves to something specific and do not stray from it. Insofar however as they do not focus on such things but on realities quite apart from them, they no longer limit themselves to something specific but spread out beyond themselves, with the result that a superior and therefore more universal picture is obtained.

[2] One may see the truth of this quite clearly in the way a person thinks. Insofar as his thought fixes its attention on the actual words a speaker uses, its attention is not fixed on their meaning. Also, insofar as his attention is fixed on particular ideas imprinted in his memory and remains concentrated on these, he has no perception of the essential nature of things. More than this, insofar as self-regard is present in everything he thinks he cramps his thought and denies himself an overall picture of anything. This explains why, insofar as anyone loves himself more than others, he is lacking in wisdom. From all this one may now see why in the internal sense matters which have no reference to actual persons are meant by those descriptions which in the sense of the letter do limit themselves to such persons. See also 5225.

Various places in the Word draw a distinction between wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge. Wisdom is used to mean that which that which springs from good, intelligence to mean that which springs from truth, and knowledge to mean to both of these as they exist in a person's natural, as in Moses,

I have filled Bezalel with the spirit of God, so far as wisdom, and intelligence, and knowledge, and all workmanship are concerned. Exodus 31:2-3; 35:30-31.

And in the same author,

Choose ¹ wise, and intelligent, and knowledgeable men, according to your tribes, and I will make them your heads. Deuteronomy 1:13.

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