6089. 'And Joseph caused Jacob his father to come' means the presence of general truth coming from the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'causing to come., or bringing to, as causing to be present, and 'coming to someone' as presence, 5934, 6063; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the doctrine of natural truth, and also natural truth itself, dealt with in 3305, 3509, 3525, 3546, 4538, at this point truth in general since his sons represent particular truths. The reason why it comes from the internal is that 'Joseph' is the internal, from which truth in the natural comes. General truth is called 'Joseph's father' because a person first of all is introduced into general truth. After that it is enriched with particular truths, and in the end there comes an insight into those truths from the internal, which is reason and understanding. This is plain to see in a person, for the power of judgement develops in him from young childhood onwards. Something similar happens with spiritual truths and forms of good when a person is being born anew or regenerated. But after the internal has come into being from general truth in the natural the state is turned around; the internal no longer acknowledges truth in the natural as its father but as a servant. That it is then a servant is made clear by Joseph's dream regarding his father, in which he says that the sun and moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to him, which led his father to say,

What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall we indeed come - I and your mother, and your brothers - to bow down to you to the earth? Genesis 37:9-10.

This explains why, in Joseph's presence, the other sons call his father so many times his servant, Genesis 43:28; 44:24, 27, 30-31, besides which Joseph was lord in the whole land of Egypt, thus even over his father.

6062. THE INTERNAL SENSE

Verse 1 And Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers, and their flocks and their herds, and all that they have, have come from the land of Canaan, and behold, they are in the land of Goshen.

'And Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said' means the presence of the internal celestial within the natural where factual knowledge resides, and the consequent influx and perception. 'My father and my brothers' means spiritual good within the natural and the truths of the Church there. 'Their flocks and their herds' means forms of the good of truth, interior and exterior ones. 'And all that they have' means whatever is dependent on them. 'Have come from the land of Canaan' means that they originate in the Church. 'And behold, they are in the land of Goshen' means that they are in the middle of the natural where factual knowledge resides.