[2] Those concepts in the rational do not come immediately into a person's view while he is living in the body. For it is the things in the natural which enter his awareness, rarely those in the rational except when a certain kind of light falls on those images in the natural, as when some mental power enters into and arranges into order the contents of a person's thought, or as when one gains an insight into the matter on which the mind is dwelling. Unless these and many other considerations are known, scarcely any intelligible explanation of what occurs in this verse is at all possible; such as that a holy ordering of general facts is meant, and also a removal from matters of doctrine so as to receive the truths of faith, and that this ordering and this removal occur during a state of obscurity, and that a state such as this is one of instruction.

[3] Nevertheless let a brief description be given, insofar as the matter can be understood, of what goes on in a person when he is being reformed by the Lord, for man's reformation is to some extent an image of what happened to the Lord when He was in the world, as stated above in 3043. While a person is being reformed the things that are general within his natural man are being ordered by the Lord so that they correspond to things that are in heaven. What correspondence is, and the fact that it is a relationship between spiritual things and natural, see 2987, 2989-2991, 3002. The things which are general are first of all ordered in such a way that those which are particular can be gradually introduced into them by the Lord, and then those that are specific into these. For unless the general are ordered, no order can come to the particular, because the latter enter into and confirm the former. Still less can order come to the specific, for these enter into the particular (which act as general things for them) and give light to the particular. This is what is meant by a holy ordering of general facts, and what is meant in the internal sense by making the camels kneel down. In this way they submit themselves to receive influx.

[4] While these things are being ordered in this manner matters of doctrine are removed since they are conclusions drawn from facts. For so to speak a dictate flows in by way of the rational, declaring that one thing is true, another not true - true because it agrees with general things when ordered, or not true because it disagrees. No other type of influx as to truths exists. Matters of doctrine are indeed present already, yet they are not really matters of doctrine until they are believed, but merely facts. When they are thought about therefore, any conclusion that is drawn is not from them but from other things concerning them. This is what is meant by being removed from matters of doctrine, and what is meant in the internal sense here by 'outside the city'. But this state is what is called an obscure state and is meant by 'evening time'; but once matters of doctrine have been confirmed so that they are believed morning, or a state of light arrives. All else in this verse is evident from what has now been stated.