'Reuben,' in the highest sense, signifies omniscience. In a spiritual sense, he signifies wisdom, intelligence, science, and faith. In a natural sense, he signifies sight. In Revelation 7:5, 'Reuben' signifies wisdom because he comes after Judah, who signifies celestial love, and celestial love produces wisdom because no love exists without its consort, which is science, intelligence, and wisdom. The consort of natural love is science, the consort of spiritual love is intelligence, and the consort of celestial love is wisdom. 'Reuben' signifies these things because he was named for 'seeing' or 'sight,' and spiritual-natural sight is science, spiritual sight is intelligence, and celestial sight is wisdom. Also, 'Reuben' was the firstborn of Jacob, and was therefore called his 'might, the beginning of [his] strength, excelling in eminence, and excelling in worth.' This is the nature of wisdom originating in celestial love. Because 'Reuben' was the firstborn, he represents and signifies the wisdom of the people of the church. This is why he urged his brothers not to kill Joseph, and grieved when Joseph was not found in the pit in Genesis 37:21, 22. This is also why his tribe camped in the south, and was called 'the camp of Reuben.' The south also signifies wisdom originating in love, which is people in this wisdom in heaven dwell to the south. 'The tribe of Reuben' in an opposite sense symbolizes wisdom divorced from love, and faith divorced from charity. This is why his father Israel cursed him in Genesis 49:3, 4. He was also deprived of his birthright in 1 Chronicles 5:1. For the same reason the tribe was given an inheritance across the Jordan and not in the land of Canaan. Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph's sons, were also acknowledged in place of Reuben and Simeon in Genesis 48:5. Nevertheless, he still retains the positive representation and symbolism of wisdom.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Revealed 351; Numbers 2:10-16)

6681. 'And the king of Egypt called the midwives' means that those under the influence of falsities planned a course of action against those who had true factual knowledge in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling' here as planning a course of action, for the purpose of the calling was the destruction of truths, but the planned course of action was made to fail because the truths were kept safe by the Divine, meant by 'the midwives feared God', 6678 (the evil in the next life who molest the good likewise plot with one another, as I have been allowed to know from experience); from the meaning of 'the king of Egypt' as those under the influence of falsities, dealt with just above in 6679; and from the meaning of 'the midwives as the natural where true factual knowledge resides, dealt with in 4588, 6673, 6675, 6678. From all this it is evident that 'the king of Egypt called the midwives' means that those under the influence of falsities planned a course of action against those who had true factual knowledge in the natural.