377. Verses 7, 8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth.

"And when he had opened the fourth seal," signifies, prediction manifested still further: "I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying," signifies, out of the inmost heaven from the Lord: "Come and see," signifies attention and perception. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse," signifies not any understanding of the Word, from evils of life, and then from the falsities thence; "and he that sat upon him," signifies the Word; "his name was Death, and Hell followed with him," signifies eternal damnation; "and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill," signifies deprivation of all good, and thence of truth, from the Word, and thence in the doctrine of their church derived from the Word; "with the sword," signifies, by falsity; "and with hunger," signifies, by deprivation, lack, and ignorance of the knowledges of truth and good; "and with death," signifies the extinction thereby of spiritual life; "and with the wild beasts of the earth," signifies evils of life, or lusts and the falsities thence arising from the love of self and of the world, which devastate all things of the church with man.

3971. 'It happened, when Rachel had borne Joseph' means acknowledgement of the spiritual represented by Joseph. This is clear from the meaning of 'bearing' as acknowledging, dealt with in 3905, 3911, 3915, 3919; from the representation of 'Rachel' as the affection for interior truth, dealt with in 3758, 3782, 3793, 3819; and from the representation of 'Joseph' as the spiritual kingdom and so the spiritual man, dealt with in 3969, and therefore as the spiritual; for having its origin in the Lord, the spiritual is that which makes the spiritual man and also the spiritual kingdom what they are. By means of Jacob's sons by the servant-girls and by Leah, the sections prior to this have dealt with the reception and acknowledgement of general truths, and eventually with the joining of those truths to the interior man, and so have dealt with man's regeneration up to and including his becoming spiritual. 'Joseph' is that spiritual man. The present sections coming directly after them deal with the fruitfulness and the multiplication of truth and good, which are meant by the flock which Jacob obtained for himself by means of Laban's flock.

[2] Indeed after the joining of the interior man to the external man has taken place, that is, of the spiritual and the natural, fruitfulness of good and multiplication of truth take place, for that joining together of the two is the heavenly marriage with man. It is from this marriage that such fruitfulness and multiplication spring. This also is why 'Joseph' in the external sense means fruitfulness and multiplication, 3965, 3969, the expressions 'fruitfulness' being used in reference to good, and 'multiplication' to truth, 43, 55, 913, 983, 2846, 2847.