6226. 'And sat on the bed' means which was turned towards the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'the bed' as the natural, dealt with in 6188. The reason why 'Israel sat on the bed' means that spiritual good was turned towards the natural is that in the last verse of the previous chapter, Chapter 47, 'Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed' meant that spiritual good turned itself towards things of the interior natural, see 6188, and therefore moving himself from the head and sitting on the bed means that spiritual good turned itself towards the natural. Nothing intelligible can be said to show what turning itself to the interior natural is, or to the exterior natural, because very few people know of the existence of the interior natural and the exterior natural, or that thought takes place at one time in the first, at another in the second. And people who do not know these things do not stop to reflect on them and consequently cannot have gained any knowledge of this particular matter by anything they have experienced. Yet this turning to one and then to the other goes on in everyone, though with variations; for at one time a person's thought is raised to things on a higher level, and at another it comes down to those on a lower level, so that at one time his thought looks upwards, at another time downwards.

[2] Apart from all this anyone can see that 'Israel bowed himself over the head of the bed' and that after that 'he sat on the bed' are matters which would have been too trivial for mention in the most holy Word unless they had held some arcanum within them. That arcanum cannot be brought to light except by means of the internal sense, except therefore through a knowledge of what each individual word means in the spiritual sense, that is, the sense that angels understand. For angels thoughts are not based, as men's are, on worldly, bodily, and earthly objects, but on heavenly ones. The nature of the difference between those two kinds of objects is particularly evident from correspondences, which are the subject at the ends of a number of chapters.

7790. 'And after that I will go out' means that God's truth will depart. This is clear from the meaning of 'going out' as departing; and from the representation of 'Moses' as God's truth. These words mean that when those who have molested the upright are damned all God's truth departs from them, for then their state is one in which their own evil reigns, and evil rejects and eliminates all God's truth. Previously, before they were damned, they were, it is true, acquainted with the truths of faith; but even so, they did not have truths within themselves. Truths were on their lips but not in their hearts. Consequently, when they underwent vastation of those truths evil remained, and the falsity of evil that had lain concealed within them emerged at the same time also. For although they declared a belief in truths they were not guided by them but by falsities. Their declaration of belief in what is true did not spring from its proper origin - from good - but from evil; for gain, important positions, and reputation, and so self and the world, were the reasons for its existence with them. Truths which spring from that kind of origin cling to the surface, and therefore, when they are laid waste, they fall off like scales; and when they fall off they leave behind places with a terrible, rotten stink because of the falsities that emanate from the evils there. Such is the fate of those who have been acquainted with the truths of faith and yet have led a life contrary to them, as accords with the Lord's words in Luke,

That servant who knows the Lord's will, but neither prepares himself nor does his will, will be beaten with many [blows]. But he who does not know, although he does things worthy of blows, will be beaten with few. Luke 12:47-48.