4470. We will even take our daughter and go. That this signifies that there would be no conjunction, is evident from the signification of marriage, as being the conjunction of good and truth (see above, n. 4466). Hence “to take the daughter and go,” is not to give her in marriage, thus that there would be no conjunction. The sons of Jacob here speak as Jacob their father; for they do not say, “we will take our sister,” but “our daughter,” the reason of which appears from the internal sense, namely, that it was the father’s part to refuse or comply, according to the law, Exodus 22:15-16. But as the posterity of Jacob and their religiosity are here treated of, it is the sons who represent this, and who therefore here answer in their father’s stead. Jacob himself could not answer, because he here represents the Ancient Church (see n. 4439).

4439. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. That this signifies a conjunction not legitimate, namely, with the affection of the truth that belonged to the external church here represented by Jacob, is evident from the signification of “to defile,” as being a conjunction not legitimate, for by marriages is signified a conjunction that is legitimate (see n. 4434), hence by their “defilement” is signified conjunction not legitimate (n. 4433); from the representation of Dinah, as being the affection of all things of faith, and the church thence derived (n. 4427); and from the representation of Jacob, who here is the external Ancient Church. That by “Jacob” is here signified the external Ancient Church is because this church was to be instituted among his descendants, and would have been instituted if his descendants had received the interior truths that existed among the ancients. That this church is here represented by Jacob is evident also from the connection in this chapter, for he was not in the plot with his sons to smite the city and kill Hamor and Shechem; and therefore he said to Simeon and Levi, “Ye have troubled me to make me stink to the inhabitant of the land” (verse 30); and in his prophetic utterance before his death, “Let not my soul come into their secret, in their congregation let not my glory be united; because in their anger they slew a man, and in their pleasure they unstrung an ox” (Genesis 49:6). Moreover in very many passages in the Word the external Ancient Church is represented by Jacob (n. 422, 4286). The reason why Jacob represents this church is that in the supreme sense he represents the Lord’s Divine natural, to which the external church corresponds. But by his “sons” are signified his descendants, who extinguished in themselves the truth that existed among the ancients, and thus destroyed that which was of the church, the result being that only its representative remained with them (see n. 4281, 4288, 4289, 4303).