6104. 'In the land of Rameses' means the inmost part of the mind and the essential nature of it. This is clear from the consideration that all names in the Word, both of persons and of places, mean spiritual entities, 1888, 3412, 4298, 4442, 5095, 5215. And since 'the land of Goshen' is the inmost part of the natural mind, 5910, 6018, 6031, 6068, 'Rameses', which was the best region in the land of Goshen, is the inmost part of the spiritual within the natural mind. But the essential nature of this inmost part can hardly be comprehended by man since it contains countless and also indescribable features which can be seen only in the light of heaven, and so only by angels. The same applies to the essential nature meant by all other names both of places and of persons that occur in the Word.

4439. 'Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter' means a wrongful joining together, that is to say, a wrongful joining to the affection for truth which the external Church represented here by 'Jacob' possessed. This is clear from the meaning of 'defiling' as a wrongful joining together, for by 'marriages' is meant a rightful joining together, 4434, and therefore by the defilement of them a wrongful one, concerning which see 4433; from the representation of 'Dinah' as the affection for all things of faith, also the Church arising from that affection, dealt with in 4427; and from the representation of 'Jacob', who at this point is the external Ancient Church. The reason why Jacob' at this point means the external Ancient Church is that such a Church was to have been established among his descendants, and would in fact have been. established if those descendants had received the interior truths which existed among the Ancients. Jacob's representation of that Church at this point is also evident from the train of thought in this chapter, for he had no part in his sons' plan to smite the city and kill Hamor and Shechem, a deed which was also the reason for his telling Simeon and Levi,

You have brought trouble on me, by making me stink to the inhabitant of the land. Verse 30; and in the prophetical utterance he made before his death,

Into their secret place let my soul not come; in their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox. Genesis 49:6.

And there are very many other places in the Word besides these in which 'Jacob' represents the external Ancient Church, 422, 4286. The reason why 'Jacob' represents that Church is that in the highest sense he represents the Lord's Divine Natural, to which the external Church corresponds. His sons however mean his descendants who annihilated truth known to the Ancients as this existed among themselves, and in so doing destroyed that which was to constitute the Church, so that only that which was the representative of it remained with them, 4281, 4288, 4289, 4303.