2322. That 'Sodom' means the evil, especially those inside the Church, is clear from the meaning of 'Sodom' as evil that stems from self-love, dealt with in 2220, 2246. It means therefore people who are governed by such evil. People who understand the Word purely from the sense of the letter may imagine that 'Sodom' is used to mean a certain kind of foul behaviour that is totally unnatural, but in the internal sense 'Sodom' means evil that springs from self-love. Out of this evil all evils of every kind well up. And the evils that well up from it are in the Word called 'adulteries' and are described as such. This will be clear from those places in the Word which will be quoted at the end of this chapter.

8610. 'And put it under him, and he sat on it' means correspondence with the highest level of truth. This becomes clear from the consideration that the stone supported Moses and 'Moses' represents the highest level of truth, which is God's truth that goes forth directly from the Lord. When the lowest level of truth corresponds with this highest level of truth it supports it, for they act as one. Interior truths are joined to exterior, and finally to the lowest through the correspondence [of each level with the one above it]. Highest truth then has might within the lowest, because it resides in it and acts through it. But if there is no such correspondence they are disjoined, and consequently highest truth has no might within lowest. What correspondence is may be seen from the extensive presentation, at the ends of a number of chapters, of the correspondence of all aspects of the human being with the Grand Man.