6025. The further explication of these words will be omitted, because they are mere names. What they signify may be seen from the general explication given just above (n. 6024). And what the sons of Jacob themselves signify may be seen in the explication where their birth is treated of. This is worthy of note: that no son was born to the sons of Jacob in Egypt, whither they came, although they were still young; but their sons were all born in the land of Canaan, while they themselves were born in Paddan-aram, except Benjamin. This was of the Lord’s special Divine providence, in order that the things of the church might be represented by them from their very birth. The sons of Jacob being born in Paddan-aram represented that the man of the church must be born anew or regenerated by means of the knowledges of good and truth; for “Paddan-aram” signifies the knowledges of good and truth (n. 3664, 3680, 4107), and their birth represented the new birth through faith and charity (n. 4668, 5160, 5598), thus at first through the knowledges of these. But that their sons were all born in the land of Canaan represented that from thence are such things as are of the church, for the “land of Canaan” denotes the church (n. 3686, 3705, 4447, 4454, 4516, 5136, 5757). But that to Joseph were born sons in Egypt, was in order that there might be represented the dominion of the internal man in the external, especially the dominion of the celestial spiritual in the natural, “Manasseh” being the will, and “Ephraim” the intellectual, of the church, in the natural.

5160. On Pharaoh’s birthday. That this signifies when the natural was being regenerated, is evident from the signification of “being born,” as being to be regenerated (of which hereafter); and from the representation of Pharaoh, as being the interior natural (see n. 5080, 5095), here the natural in general, because with the regenerate the interior and the exterior natural act as a one through their mutual correspondence. “To be born” is to be regenerated because spiritual things are meant in the internal sense, and spiritual birth is regeneration, which is also called rebirth; and therefore when “birth” is mentioned in the Word, no other birth is understood in heaven than that which is effected by “water and the spirit,” that is, through faith and charity; because it is by his being born again or regenerated that man becomes man, and is wholly distinguished from the brutes; for he then becomes a son and heir of the Lord’s kingdom. (That spiritual births are signified by the births which are mentioned in the Word may be seen above, n. 1145, 1255, 3860, 3868, 4070, 4668)