In a general sense, being "born" in the Bible represents one spiritual state producing another, usually some form of love or affection producing or "giving birth" to truth or to desires for good. This is not hard to see: If you love someone, that love naturally gives birth to ideas on how to be good to that person and make him or her happy. This is why sons and daughters in the Bible represent true ideas and desires for good. On a higher level, though, being born represents what the Writings call "regeneration," or the life-long process of putting off our natural thoughts and desires and embracing spiritual life from the Lord. This is what the Bible means when it talks about being "born again" – if we live our lives from the Lord, He will eventually take away our evil desires so that we can be "born" as angels in heaven, free of evil desires and dark thoughts. Of course, these two levels of meaning are really one: The Lord is love itself, and if we align with Him we become forms of love and truth ourselves, expressions of His love just as the desire to do something good might be the expression of your love for a friend.

5347. Verses 50-52 And to Joseph were born two sons before the year of the famine came, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh - for God has made me forget all my labour and all my father's house. And the name of the second he called Ephraim - for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.

'And to Joseph were born two sons' means the good and truth born from this. 'Before the year of famine came' means which were born through the natural. 'Whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him' means which were born from the marriage. 'And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh' means a new area of will within the natural, and the essential nature of it. 'For God has made me forget all my labour' means a removal after temptations have finished. 'And all my father's house' means the removal of hereditary evils. 'And the name of the second he called Ephraim' means a new area of understanding within the natural, and the essential nature of it. 'For God has made me fruitful' means leading to a multiplication of truth from good. 'In the land of my affliction' means where the temptations were undergone.

3546. 'Into the hand of Jacob her son' means that such was the affection for natural truth This is clear from the fact that this phrase concludes those that go before it, and that at that point Jacob - who represents natural truth, 3305, 3509, 3525 - appeared thus; that is to say, he was wearing the skins of the kids of she-goats on his hands and neck and had in his hand savoury food which he was to take to his father Isaac.