6361. 'And will scatter them in Israel' means that they are to be banished from the spiritual man. This is clear from the meaning of 'scattering' too as a banishment; but 'scattering' is distinguished from 'dividing' by the fact that the latter is used in reference to the external man and to truth, whereas the former is used in reference to the internal man and to good - 'Jacob' represents the natural or external man, and 'Israel' the spiritual or internal man, see 4286, 4291, 4570.

These things that Israel stated regarding Simeon and Levi, and also those regarding Reuben, do not mean such things as would happen, as verse 1 says, to their descendants at the end of days. This can be recognized from the fact that those descended from Simeon and from Levi were not cursed; nor were they divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel. The tribe of Simeon existed among the rest of the tribes as one of their number, while the tribe of Levi became the priesthood and so was blessed rather than cursed. Nor likewise was the tribe of Reuben inferior to any other tribe. From this it is quite evident that the things stated in this chapter about what would happen to the sons of Jacob at the end of days refer to what would happen not to those actual descendants but to people who are meant by them in the internal sense. At this point what would happen to those with faith separated from charity is meant, for they are the ones who are meant at this point in the internal sense by Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. From this it becomes perfectly clear that the internal sense of the Word is not that which shows itself in the letter; nor can that sense be seen by anyone unless he has a knowledge of the correspondences of natural things with spiritual ones. Indeed it is not seen at all by anyone who does not know what the spiritual is or what the celestial is.

4570. 'But indeed Israel will be your name' means the nature of the internal natural, or the nature of the spiritual aspect of it, represented by 'Israel'; 'and He called his name Israel' means the internal Natural or the celestial-spiritual aspect of the Natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'name' as the essential nature, dealt with just above in 4568, and from the meaning of 'Israel' as the internal aspect of the Lord's natural and also the celestial-spiritual aspect of the Natural. No one can know why Jacob was called Israel unless he knows what the internal natural is and what the external natural is, and in addition what the celestial-spiritual aspect of the natural is. These matters have in actual fact been explained already, when Jacob was named Israel by the angel; but because they are the kind of things about which people know little, if anything, they need to be explained again.

[2] Two quite distinct and separate degrees exist in man - the rational and the natural. The rational constitutes the internal man and the natural the external; but the natural, like the rational also, has an external aspect of its own and an internal one. The external aspect of the natural is composed of the physical senses and of the impressions received from the world through these senses immediately. By means of his sensory impressions a person is in touch with things belonging to the world and to the body; and people who are confined solely to this natural are called sensory-minded because their thought goes scarcely at all beyond sensory experience. But the internal part of the natural is made up of ideas inferred - by the use of analysis and analogies - from what is in the external, even though it draws on and derives its ideas from sensory impressions. So the natural is in touch through the senses with things belonging to the world and to the body, and through ideas, arrived at by the use of analogy and analysis, with the rational, thus with things belonging to the spiritual world. Such is the composition of the natural. There is another part that exists between and has links with both of them - with the external aspect and with the internal - and so is in touch through the external with things in the natural world, and through the internal with those in the spiritual world. This external natural is represented specifically by 'Jacob', and the internal natural by 'Israel'. The situation is similar with the rational; that is to say, there is an external aspect and an internal, and a further one between the two. But this, in the Lord's Divine mercy, is to be discussed where Joseph is the subject, for 'Joseph' represents the external aspect of the rational.

[3] What the celestial-spiritual is however has been stated several times already - that essentially the celestial is good and the spiritual truth, so that the celestial-spiritual is that which is good resulting from truth. Now because the Lord's Church is both external and internal, and internal features of the Church had to be represented by the descendants of Jacob through things of an external nature, Jacob could not therefore be called Jacob any longer, but was called Israel - see what has been introduced already about these matters in 4286, 4292. Further to this it should be recognized that the terms celestial and spiritual are used both of the rational and of the natural. Celestial is used when people receive good, and spiritual when they receive truth from the Lord; for the good which flows from the Lord into heaven is called celestial, and the truth is called spiritual. In the highest sense the naming of Jacob as Israel means that the Lord progressed towards more interior aspects and made the Natural within Him Divine, both the external aspect of it and the internal. For in the highest sense that which is represented is the Natural itself.