4342. 'And he divided the sons over towards Leah' means the deployment of external truths beneath their own specific affection. This is clear from the meaning of 'dividing over towards' as deployment; from the meaning of 'the sons' as truths, dealt with in 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623, 3373; and from the representation of 'Leah' as the affection for exterior truth, dealt with in 3793, 3819. Consequently 'the sons' in this case means the truths that belong to exterior affection, and therefore means external truths. The expression external truths is being used for those which are called sensory truths, that is to say, truths which enter in immediately from the world by way of the bodily senses, while interior truths, meant by Rachel's sons, are those which are present interiorly within the natural and more immediately beneath the eye of the rational, and to which misconceptions and resulting illusions cling less easily than to sensory truths. For the more that truths enter in by the interior way the more they are purified from worldly and earthly things.

2891. Those who have become spirits only recently torment themselves very much by trying to grasp the idea that no one is able to do good of himself, or to think what is true of himself, but that he does so from the Lord. For they believe that if that idea is true they would accordingly be like mere machines and have control of nothing at all; and that being so they would let hands hang down and allow themselves to be acted upon. But they are told that they ought by all means to think, to will, and to do good of themselves, and that in no other way could they have a heavenly proprium and heavenly freedom. But they are also told that they ought nevertheless to acknowledge that good and truth do not originate in themselves but in the Lord, and they are informed that such acknowledgement and indeed perception that this is so exists with all angels. And the more keenly they perceive that they are led by the Lord and so abide in Him the more they are in freedom.