7437. 'behold, he goes out to the water' means that they proceeded from those evils to contemplate further falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'going out' as proceeding in one's thinking from evils to falsities, for when people immersed in evils proceed in their thinking from those evils to falsities they are said 'to go out' because evil, belonging as it does to the will, is inmost, and falsity, since it belongs to the understanding and therefore to thought, is outside it, and this is what 'going out' means in the spiritual sense (it also means evil action proceeding from an evil will, as stated in Mark 7:20-23); and from the meaning of 'water' as truths, and in the contrary sense falsities, dealt with in 739, 790, 2702, 3058, 3424, 4976, 5668, 'the water of the river of Egypt' to which Pharaoh is going to go out meaning falsities, 7307.

[2] As regards proceeding in one's thinking from evils to falsities, it should be recognized that those who are immersed in evils cannot in their thinking do anything other than proceed from those evils to falsities, since evils are what they will and consequently love, and falsities are what they think and consequently believe. For what a person wills he also loves, and what he loves he also bolsters and defends. And evils cannot be bolstered or defended except by means of falsities, which is why, when evil is compared in the Word to a city, falsities are compared to the defensive walls surrounding the city. The reason why those immersed in evils proceed in their thinking to falsities, which they use to defend evils, is that evils are the very delights of their life, to so great an extent that they constitute their life itself. This being so, when they learn from others that those evils are indeed evils, then to guard against their being seen as such they think up falsities which they use to make people believe that the evils are not evils. But if the evils do not dare to make their appearance through falsities they are concealed inwardly and do not reveal themselves, except when fear of the law ceases to exist, or else fear of the loss of reputation for the sake of making gain or for the sake of attaining important positions. When these fears cease to exist the evils burst forth into the open either by way of duplicity or by way of hostility.

[3] From all this one may see that those who are immersed in evils cannot in their thinking do anything other than proceed from evils to falsities. The situation is also similar with those living in a state of goodness, in that in their thinking they cannot do anything other than proceed from good to truths. For goodness and truth go together, as also do evil and falsity, joined to each other so completely that a person who knows that someone is governed by good can know that he is guided by the truth that goes with his good. He can know too that a person who is immersed in evil is steeped in the falsity that goes with his evil, and that the extent to which he is steeped in falsity is determined by the strength of his ability to engage in reasoning and to pervert, and then the extent to which he fears loss of the reputation he needs to have for the sake of gain and position, and how much freedom he wishes to have to do evil. It is astonishing how after using falsities for a certain length of time to defend evils such people then convince themselves that evils are forms of good and that falsities are truths.

3424. 'Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of living water' means the Word as regards the literal sense, which holds the internal sense within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'digging in the valley' as investigating lower down to discover where truths are, for 'digging' is investigating, and 'a valley' is that which is lower down, 1723, 3417; and from the meaning of 'a well of living water' as the Word in which Divine truths are present, thus the Word as regards the literal sense which holds the internal sense within it. It is well known that the Word is called 'a spring', in particular 'a spring of living waters'. The reason why the Word is also called 'a well' is that in relation to its other senses the sense of the letter is like a well, and that where spiritual people are concerned the Word is not a spring but a well, see 2702, 3096. Since a valley is that which is lower down, or what amounts to the same, that which is more external, and it was in the valley that the spring was found; and since the literal sense is the lower or more external sense of the Word, it is the literal sense that is therefore meant. But because that sense holds the internal sense, that is, the heavenly and Divine sense, its waters are for that reason called 'living', as also were the waters which went out under the threshold of the new house in Ezekiel,

And it will happen, that every wild creature that creeps, wherever the river comes to, is living; and there will be very many fish, for those waters go there, and become fresh; and everything is living where the river goes. Ezekiel 47:8-9.

Here 'the river' is the Word, 'the waters which cause everything to live' are the Divine Truths within it, 'fish' are facts, 40, 991.

[2] The Lord teaches that the Word of the Lord is such that it gives life to him who is thirsty, that is, to one who desires life, and that it is a spring whose waters are living, in John,

Jesus said to the woman from Samaria at Jacob's well, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give Me a drink, you would ask from Him, and He would give you living water. He who drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life. John 4:10, 14.

The reason why the Word is living and therefore confers life is that in its highest sense the subject is the Lord, while in the inmost sense it is His kingdom in which the Lord is everything. And this being so it is life itself which the Word contains and which flows into the minds of those who read the Word devoutly. This is why the Lord, in regard to the Word which comes from Himself, calls Himself 'a spring of water welling up into eternal life'; see also 2702.

[3] The fact that the Word of the Lord is called 'a well' in addition to 'a spring' is clear in Moses,

Israel sang the song: Spring up, O well! Answer to it! The well which the princes dug, which the chiefs of the people dug out, as directed by the Lawgiver, ¹ with their staves. Numbers 21:17-18.

These words were sung at the place Beer, that is, the place of the well. In this case 'a well' means the Word which existed with the Ancient Church, as is evident from what has been said previously about the Word in 2897. 'The princes' means the first and foremost truths of which [the Word] consists - 'princes' being first and foremost truths, see 1482, 2089 - 'nobles of the people' lower truths such as those present in the literal sense, 1259, 1260, 2928, 3295. 'The Lawgiver' is clearly the Lord, 'staves' the powers which those truths possessed.

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