Since the sun represents the Lord, the early morning and sunrise represent a state of enlightenment with a new and clear understanding coming after a time of darkness. There are many ways this representation appears in modern life. For one, it’s long been tradition to orient churches with the sanctuary in the east, toward the rising sun. People grappling with a problem often decide to “sleep on it,” anticipating that answers will be more clear in the morning. And we actually use “dawn” as a verb for sudden enlightenment: “As he stared out the window, it dawned on him that the answer had been in his hands all along.”

10628. 'For they are a stiff-necked people' means even though the Israelite nation does not accept what is Divine from an interior level. This is clear from the meaning of 'a stiff-necked people' as those who do not receive the inflow of what is Divine, dealt with in 10429, thus do not accept what is Divine from an interior level; for what is Divine flows into a person from an interior level. The implications of this are clear from what has been shown before regarding the Israelite nation, namely that their interest lay in the external things of worship, the Church, and the Word, and not at all in what was internal, so that they stood outside and not within what was external. What is implied by standing outside and not within what is external, see 10551, 10608.