996. And the water thereof was dried up. That this signifies that falsities were removed is evident from the signification of waters, as denoting truths, and, in the opposite sense, falsities (concerning which see n. 518), in the present case falsities, because it follows, that the way of the kings from the rising of the sun might be prepared, by which is signified, that Divine truth from the Lord might flow in, and from the signification of being dried up, as denoting to be removed. The state of man as to the Rational is here described. It is the Rational from which man is enabled to see and understand truths; and so far as he can see truths, so far falsities from evils do not oppose. For the power to understand truths is given to every man, even to the evil (see above, n. 874, 970). But the reason why a man neither sees nor understands them is, that he loves evil, and this brings in falsity; and afterwards, when truth falls into falsity, truth cannot then appear in its own light, for it is blunted, obscured, suffocated, and rejected. But falsities from evils neither enter, nor thus oppose, in the first age of man; but they enter in the second and third, when he no longer thinks from the memory alone or from a master, but from his own understanding. For the Rational, wherein is the understanding, is opened successively as a man grows up. From these things it is evident that falsities, in the meanwhile, are removed, and that knowledges of good and truth from the Word then enter; these a man also sees in a certain light, apart from falsities. But that rational sight is afterwards perverted by reasonings from fallacies and from falsities, is signified by the three unclean spirits like frogs, out of the mouth of the dragon, and of the beast, and of the false prophet, which are treated of in what follows. The proximate sense of the words, that the water of the river Euphrates was dried up that the way of the kings from the rising of the sun might be prepared, is, that a passage might be given from the church, where the Divine truths are, which the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet were desirous of perverting. For the Euphrates was a boundary on one side of the land of Canaan, and separated it from Assyria; and by the land of Canaan is signified the church, and by Assyria the Rational.