360. Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed. This symbolizes a doctrine of goodness and truth in those people who will be part of the New Heaven and of the Lord's New Church.
In the highest sense Joseph symbolizes the Lord in respect to His Divinity on the spiritual plane; in the spiritual sense, the spiritual kingdom; and in the natural sense, reproduction and multiplication. Here, however, Joseph symbolizes the doctrine of goodness and truth that is found in people who are in the Lord's spiritual kingdom. Joseph has this symbolism here because he is named after the tribe of Zebulun and before the tribe of Benjamin, thus in between them, and the tribe mentioned first in a series or group symbolizes some love pertaining to the will; the tribe mentioned after that symbolizes some aspect of wisdom pertaining to the intellect; and the tribe mentioned last symbolizes some useful outcome or effect resulting from them. Every series is thus a complete one.
Since Joseph symbolized the Lord's spiritual kingdom, therefore He was made ruler in Egypt (Genesis 41:38-44, Psalms 105:17-22), where every particular has a symbolic meaning that has to do with the Lord's spiritual kingdom.
The spiritual kingdom is the Lord's royal one, while the celestial kingdom is His priestly one.
[2] Joseph here symbolizes a doctrine of goodness and truth because he is substituted here for Ephraim, and Ephraim symbolizes the intellectual component of the church (see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 79), the intellectual component of the church being everything derived from the doctrine of goodness and truth drawn from the Word.
Joseph is substituted here for Ephraim because Manasseh, Joseph's second son, who symbolized the volitional component of the church, was already included among the tribes (no. 355).
Because the intellectual component of the church is derived from a doctrine of goodness and truth, therefore Joseph symbolizes this intellectual component and also that doctrine in the following places:
Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring... His bow remained in strength... (He will be blessed) with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath... (Genesis 49:22-26)
The spring symbolizes the Word, and the bow doctrine (no. 299).
Blessed of Jehovah is (Joseph's) land, with the precious things of heaven, with the dew, and the deep lying beneath, and with the precious fruits of the sun, with the precious produce of the months, and... with the precious things of the earth and its fullness... Let it come on the head of Joseph... (Deuteronomy 33:13-17)
The precious things symbolize concepts of goodness and truth, from which comes doctrine.
...who drink from goblets of wine, and... are not grieved over the shattering of Joseph. (Amos 6:6)
I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph... (Hence) they shall be like mighty Ephraim, and their heart shall rejoice as if with wine. (Zechariah 10:6-7)
Here, too, Joseph stands for doctrine, the wine symbolizing its truth springing from goodness (no. 316).
