To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people -- it is a group that was created together, at roughly the same time, from the same parents or group of parents. On a spiritual level, we can be “generators” by using what we know from the Lord to create ideas of how to be good, and also to create good actions based on those ideas -- what the Writings call things of faith and things of charity. In general, then, a “generation” in the Bible represents the spiritual ideas and activities created by a church -- with a “church” being anything from an individual believer to a group lasting thousands of years. “Generation” can also pick up specific meanings from context. For instance, when the Bible says the people of Israel were captive in Egypt for four generations, it means a state of temptation based on the meaning of “four.” When paired with “eternity,” meanwhile, “generations” represents ideas and actions surrounding love of serving others, with “eternity” representing things springing from love of the Lord. Finally, “generations and generations” is used in the Bible to represent forever.

6639. 'A man and his household they came' means in regard to truth and in regard to good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a man' as truth, dealt with in 3134, 3459; and from the meaning of 'household' or 'house' as good, dealt with in 3720, 4982. Since the subject in those chapters in Genesis that deal with the coming of Jacob's sons, and of Israel himself, into Egypt to Joseph was the introduction of the Church's truths into factual knowledge, and since the Church was not established until after that introduction had taken place, the subject now - keeping to the train of thought in the internal sense - is the Church which has been established and the way in which it is constantly molested by factual knowledge and falsities. For no matter how far truths have been introduced and the Church has been established with a person, factual knowledge and falsities are nevertheless constantly rising up and attacking the things of the Church that are present with him. These are the considerations that are represented by the fact that Pharaoh and the Egyptians afflicted the children of Israel and wished to kill their baby boys.

[2] Anyone unacquainted with the situation in which the Church's truth is under attack from factual knowledge and falsities among those in the next life who belong to the Church cannot possibly believe that such a thing is true. A member of the Church who enters the next life has to be purified from the kinds of things that molest truths and forms of good, otherwise he cannot be raised into heaven and live among a community of people there who have been purified from the same kind of things. If he were raised into heaven before such purification had taken place he would be like fog surrounded by clear air or like a patch or darkness amid bright light. In order therefore that a member of the Church recently arrived from the world may undergo purification, he is kept in a state in which he may receive attacks from factual knowledge that does not agree with truths, and also from falsities; and he remains in this state until that factual knowledge becomes worthless to him and is removed. This rarely happens to a person during his lifetime, but in the next life it is exactly what happens to those who are to be raised into heaven, though there is considerable variation to the process. I have been allowed to know that all this is true from much experience, which would fill quite a number of pages if all of it were recounted.

[3] There are the matters that are described in the internal sense by the oppression of the children of Israel by the Egyptians, after that by their deliverance from them, and finally by their introduction - after various states in the wilderness - into the land of Canaan. The truth of all this cannot possibly be grasped by those who believe that salvation is simply being admitted into heaven through an act of mercy, and that anyone can be admitted who thinks - on the basis of seeming trust, called faith - that he can be saved, regardless of the life he has led, because the Lord has suffered on his behalf. For if salvation involved simply being admitted into heaven through an act of mercy, then everyone in the whole world would be saved, since the Lord, who is Mercy itself, desires the salvation of all and the death or damnation of none.