AC 6025 - Where the Descendants of Jacob Were Born Matters

AC 6025

This is worthy of note:
that no son was born to the sons of Jacob in Egypt,
to which place they came, although they were still young;
but their sons were all born in the land of Canaan,
while they themselves were born in Paddan-aram,
except Benjamin.
This was of the Lord's special Divine providence,
in order that the things of the church
might be represented by them from their very birth.
The sons of Jacob being born in Paddan-aram
represented that the person of the church
must be born anew or regenerated
by means of the knowledges of good and truth;
for "Paddan-aram" means
the knowledges of good and truth,
and their birth represented the new birth
through faith and charity,
thus at first through the knowledges of these.
But that their sons were all born in the land of Canaan
represented that from there are such things
as are of the church,
for the "land of Canaan" denotes the church.
But that to Joseph were born sons in Egypt,
was in order that there might be represented
the dominion of the internal person in the external,
especially the dominion
of the celestial spiritual in the natural,
"Manasseh" being the will,
and "Ephraim" the intellectual,
of the church, in the natural.