8661. 'I your father-in-law Jethro [come to you], and your wife, and her two sons with her' means levels of God's good in their order. This is clear from the representation of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, as Divine Good, dealt with in 8643, 8644; from the representation of Zipporah, the wife of Moses, as good originating in that Divine Good and joined to God's truth, dealt with in 8647; and from the representation of 'her sons' as forms of the good of truth, dealt with in 8649 8651. Thus they are levels of good in their order. Levels of good in their order are interior and exterior forms of good that come in order one after another - in degrees, about which see 3691, 4154, 5114, 5145, 5146, 8603.

4154. 'And he went out of Leah's tent and came into Rachel's tent' means the holiness of that truth. This is clear from what has been stated immediately above. Truths, like goods, divide into exterior and interior ones, for there is an internal man and an external man. The internal man's goods and truths are called internal goods and truths, while the external man's are referred to as external goods and truths. The internal man's goods and truths exist in three degrees, as they do in the three heavens; and the external man's goods and truths likewise exist in three degrees and correspond to those internal ones. Indeed there are goods and truths which stand midway between the internal man and the external, which are intermediaries, for without those that are midway or intermediary no communication is possible. There are goods and truths proper to the natural man which are called external goods and truths, and there are also sensory goods and truths which belong to the body and so are the most external. These goods and truths existing in three degrees belong to the external man and, as has been stated, correspond to the same number of goods and truths of the internal man, which will in the Lord's Divine Providence be dealt with elsewhere.

[2] The goods and truths belonging to each degree are entirely distinct and separate from one another and not in the least muddled up. The more interior are ones which give form, and the more exterior are ones which receive it. But although they are entirely distinct and separate from one another they are not seen by man as being distinct. Anyone who is sensory-minded cannot do other than regard all interior things, and indeed internal things themselves, as being merely objects perceived with the senses; for he sees things from the senses and so from a very external point of view. Interior things cannot possibly be seen from the most external, but the most external can be seen from interior things. The natural man, that is, one who bases his thinking on facts, cannot see other than that the natural things on which his thinking is based are inmost things, when in reality they are external. And the more interior man, who bases his judgements and conclusions on analytical arguments revealed by natural facts, in a similar way believes that they are the inmost things which man possesses, because they seem to him to be the inmost. Actually they come below his rational ideas, and so in relation to genuine rational ideas are more exterior or lower. Such is the manner of man's mental grasp of things. The matters which have just been discussed concern the natural or external man existing in three degrees. But those which belong to the internal man also exist, as has been stated, in three degrees, as they do in the three heavens.

[3] From these considerations that have now been mentioned one may see what is implied by truths, meant by 'the teraphim', not being found in the tents of Jacob, Leah, or the servant-girls, but in Rachel's tent, that is, within the holiness of the affection for interior truth. All truth which comes from the Divine exists within holiness, for it cannot be otherwise, seeing that truth which comes from the Divine is holy. It is called holy from the affection, that is, from the love which flows in from the Lord and causes truth to stir a person's affection.