AE 654 - Israel

AE 654 [18]

When Israel was a child then I loved him,
and called My son out of Egypt.
(Hosea 11:1)

"Israel" signifies in the spiritual sense the church,
and in the highest sense the Lord,
who as He is the all of heaven is also the all of the church.
And as the sons of Israel were to represent the church,
and it was according to Divine order
that they should first be instructed
in such things as would be serviceable to the rational
and through this to the spiritual,
they first sojourned in Egypt,
and afterwards were led into the wilderness
that they might undergo temptations,
and that through these the natural man might be subdued;
for man does not become rational
until empty and false knowledges [scientifica] are removed,
and the natural man is thus purified,
which is effected mainly by temptations.