In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

5801. 'Have you a father, or a brother?' means the good that is the source, and the truth that is the means. This is clear from the representation of Israel, to whom 'a father' refers here, as spiritual good or the good of truth, dealt with in 3654, 4598, good that is the source being meant because spiritual good is the source from which truths in the natural derive; and from the representation of Benjamin, to whom 'a brother' refers here, as truth, truth that is the means being meant because truth is the means by which the truths of the Church present in the natural, represented by 'Jacob's sons', are joined to spiritual good, represented by 'Israel'. And since the joining together is effected by means of that truth, much is said about how their father loved Benjamin, who represents that truth, and about how Judah together with the rest could not return to their father unless Benjamin was with them. For more about that truth, see below in 5835. ¹

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