4310. In the internal historical sense 'Jacob called the name of the place Peniel' means a state in which they took on representations. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, often dealt with already; from the meaning of 'place' as state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387; and from the meaning of 'Peniel', in this sense, as taking on representations, for representations are the subject in what has gone before and directly follows. The literal meaning of Peniel is explained in the words 'for I have seen God face to face, and my soul is delivered', the spiritual meaning of which is the Lord's presence in that which was represented, dealt with immediately below. So the meaning here is that they took on representations. Names of places, as with the names of persons, and also of actual things, do not have the same meaning in one sense as they do in another. Jacob himself, for example, in the sense of the letter means Jacob himself; in the internal historical sense his descendants, 4281; in the internal spiritual sense the natural man in the case of one who is regenerate; but in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Natural is meant, as has been shown often. This applies to all other names, and so no less to Peniel.

848. When temptations have come to an end there is so to speak fluctuation. And if the temptations are spiritual it is fluctuation between truth and falsity, as also becomes quite clear from the fact that temptation is the starting point to regeneration. The purpose of all regeneration therefore is that a person may receive new life, or rather that he may receive life, and from not being a man may become one, that is, from being a dead man may become one who is alive. When therefore his former life, which is purely animal, is destroyed by means of temptations he cannot after temptations do other than fluctuate between truth and falsity. Truth belongs to the new life, falsity to the old. Unless the former life is destroyed and this fluctuation takes place, spiritual seed can never be implanted because there is no ground for it.

[2] Once that former life has been destroyed however, and this kind of fluctuation is taking place, a person knows almost nothing at all of what truth and good are. Indeed he scarcely knows of the existence of any such thing as truth. Take, for example, the situation in which a person considers whether he is able to perform from the proprium any good deeds that stem from charity, that is, good works, as people call them, and whether merit rests in his proprium. He is in that case in such obscurity and darkness that when told that nobody is able to do anything good from himself, that is, from his proprium, still less merit anything, and that all good comes from the Lord and all merit is the Lord's, it must inevitably astonish him. The same applies to all other matters of faith. Nevertheless that obscurity or darkness in which he dwells is slowly and gradually lightened.

[3] Regeneration is exactly like when a person is born as an infant. At this point he is living in the greatest obscurity, knowing virtually nothing. This being so, general ideas of things flow in first, which gradually become more definite as specific ideas are introduced into the general, and further still as yet more detailed ideas are introduced into the specific. Detailed ideas light up the general so that he knows not merely of their existence but also the nature of them. A similar process takes place with everyone emerging from spiritual temptation; and the state is similar in the case of people in the next life who have been under the influence of falsities and who are now being vastated. This state is called fluctuation and is described here as 'the waters receding, going back and forth'.