In the Bible, Egypt represents knowledge and the love of knowledge. In a good sense that means knowledge of truth from the Lord through the Bible, but in a natural sense it simply means earthly knowledge to be stored up and possessed. And even knowledge from the Bible is not always good: If we learn them with the goal of making them useful, then they are filled with angelic ideas. But they lack purpose when they are learned only for the sake of knowing things or for the reputation of being learned. So Egypt is a place you go to learn things, but to become heavenly you have to escape the sterile "knowing" and journey to the land of Canaan, where the knowledge is filled with the internal desire for good. It's interesting that when Egypt was ruled by Joseph, it was a haven for his father and brothers. This shows that when a person's internal mind rules in the land of learning, they can learn much that is useful. But eventually a pharaoh arose that didn't know Joseph, and the Children of Israel were enslaved. The pharaoh represents the external mind; when it is in charge the excitement and self-congratulation of knowing can reduce the internal mind to a type of slavery. The mind - like the Children of Israel - ends up making bricks, or man-made falsities from external appearances.

6645. 'And Joseph died' means that the situation with the internal part of the Church had now altered. This is clear from the meaning of 'dying' as the end of the former state and the beginning of the new one, thus the fact that the state of the Church had now altered (for 'dying' means ceasing to be what it has been, see 494, 6587, 6593, as well as meaning the end of the former representation, 3253, 3259, 7276, 6302); and from the representation of Joseph' as the internal part, dealt with in 6177, 6224. The nature of the state that the internal part of the Church passes through now is described in the internal sense of what follows, and so too is the state the external part of it passes through, which is meant by 'his brothers died, and all that generation'.

[2] The Church as it exists with a person goes from time to time through states that are new; for as the person's hold on the truth of faith and the good of charity grows stronger, so he is led into different states. A former state then serves as the foundation for the state that follows it, and so on unceasingly. In this way a person who is a Church, or one who is being regenerated, is being led all the time into things more internal, thus further into heaven. The reason why all this happens is that in His love, which is infinite because it is Divine, the Lord wishes to draw a person all the way to Himself and by doing this to bless him in every way with glory and happiness, as is also plainly evident from the Lord's words in John,

I pray that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You, that they also may be one in Us. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. Father, I desire that those whom You gave Me may also be with Me where I am, that they may see My glory which You have given Me. For I made known to them Your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. John 17:20-26.

[3] These words, it is plainly evident, are those of Divine love going out towards all who receive it. The idea becomes additionally clear from the fact that the Lord is seen in the next life as the Sun, from which He fills the whole of heaven with warmth and light. The flame of that Sun is nothing else than Divine love, and the light from it is the holiness radiated by love, which is Divine Truth. This shows how great the Lord's love is. This then is why those who belong to the Church are led by consecutive stages into new states, thus all the time further into heaven, consequently closer to the Lord.