8356. 'And the waters became sweet' means that as a result the truths were made pleasant. This is clear from the meaning of 'sweet' as pleasant, for 'sweet' in the spiritual sense means sweetness of life, which is the same thing as pleasantness; and from the meaning of 'the waters' as truths, dealt with immediately above in 8355. The situation here is that a person's feeling of affection for truth comes from good. For goodness and truth have been joined together as if in marriage, and therefore one loves the other in the way that married partner loves married partner. This also explains why in the Word, when goodness and truth are joined together, they are likened to a marriage, and why the truths and forms of good born from that marriage are called sons and daughters. From this it becomes clear that the pleasantness belonging to the affection for truth traces its origin back solely to good. Experience too demonstrates this; for people who lead a good life, that is, who love God and their neighbour, also love the truths of faith. That being so, as long as good is flowing in and being received, truth appears pleasant. But as soon as good ceases to flow in, that is, as soon as evil begins to predominate and the inflow of good to be held back, truth is immediately sensed to be unpleasant; for truth and evil repel and loathe each other. From all this one may now see why the order was given to throw wood into the bitter waters, and also why the waters were made sweet by the wood that had been thrown into them. God would never have commanded such an action to be taken if those kinds of things had not been meant by it. For God could have rendered those waters sweet without the use of wood.