5804. 'And a child of his old age, the youngest one' means truth that is new, springing from that good. This is clear from the representation of Benjamin, to whom 'a child, the youngest one' refers here, as truth, dealt with above in 5801, in addition to which 'child' or 'son' means truth, see 489, 491, 1147, 1623, 3373; and from the meaning of 'old age' as newness of life, dealt with in 3492, 4620, 4676. From this it is evident that 'a child of his old age, the youngest one' means truth that is new. The implications of this are as follows: A person who is being regenerated and becoming spiritual is led initially by means of truth to good; for a person does not know what spiritual good is, or what amounts to the same, what Christian good is, except through truth, that is, through teaching drawn from the Word. This is the way he is introduced into good. After that, once he has been introduced into it, he is led no longer by means of truth to good, but by means of good to truth; for at this point good not only enables him to see the truths he knew previously but also brings forth new ones he did not and could not know previously. Good holds the desire for truths within itself because it is so to speak nourished by them; indeed they make it more perfect. These truths - the new ones - are very different from the truths he knew before; for the truths he knew before possessed little life in them. But those which he receives afterwards possess life coming from good.

[2] Once a person has by means of truth arrived at good he is 'Israel', and the truth which he now receives from good, that is, from the Lord through good, is the new truth that 'Benjamin' represented all the time he was with his father. By means of this truth good in the natural bears fruit, bringing forth countless truths that hold good within them. This is the way the regeneration of the natural proceeds, becoming by its fruitfulness first of all like a tree with good fruit on it and then gradually like a garden. All this shows what is meant by new truth springing from spiritual good.

3492. 'So it was, that Isaac was old' means when the state was reached. This is clear from the meaning of 'growing old' as the arrival and presence of a new state; for 'old age' in the Word means both the casting aside of the previous state and the assumption of the new one. The reason it has these two meanings is that old age is the final stage of life, when bodily things start to be cast aside together with the loves which belong to the preceding stage, and so when interior things start to be enlightened; for once bodily things have been removed interior things are enlightened. And a further reason for the two meanings is that angels, who perceive spiritually the things that are in the Word, no longer have the concept of old age but instead the concept of new life. Thus by Isaac's being old they perceive that the state was reached, that is to say, when the Divine Rational, represented by Isaac, desired the Natural which corresponded to itself, that is, that the Natural too should be Divine.