6156. 'That you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh' means that remnants are to be assigned to the general whole, which is under the control of the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'five' or 'a fifth' as remnants, dealt with in 5291, 5894; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the general whole within the natural, as above in 6153, the expression 'under the control of the internal' being used for the reason dealt with above in 6145 For what remnants are, see 1050, 1738, 1906, 2284, 5135, 5897, 5898, where it is shown that they are goods and truths stored away by the Lord in the interior man. They are brought out into the exterior or natural man when a person is in a state of goodness; but they are withdrawn and stored away again the moment he passes into a state of evil. They are withdrawn and stored away again to prevent them from being mixed up with evils and thereby destroyed.
[2] During the time that a person is Unable to be regenerated his remnants are held in safe keeping within him interiorly; but when he is being regenerated they are brought from his interiors - as many as are appropriate to the stage reached in his regeneration - into his exteriors, for the reason that through regeneration his interiors become joined to his exteriors and act in unison with them. Those remnants are assigned first to general wholes, then gradually to specific parts. From this one may see, since the subject here in the internal sense is the regeneration of the natural, what is meant by the assignment of those remnants to the general whole in the natural.
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