Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases -- when it is connected to ideas or objects -- its spiritual meaning and natural meaning are essentially the same. When the Bible talks about people knowing each other and especially when it talks about the Lord knowing people, the meaning has more to do with the states of love within people than it does with any factual knowledge. This makes sense if you think about it. When we really "know" somebody, what we mean is that we know what kind of person they are, what their motivations are, what they love, what they hate, what makes them tick. Those things are far more important than knowing their parents' names, where they were born or what year they graduated from school. Most often then, especially applied to people, "knowing" has to do with the perceptions we have about other people's loves and the conjunction that can exist between those with similar loves, not just a collection of facts.

5471. 'When he pleaded with us and we did not hear him' means its constant entreaty without ever gaining acceptance. This is clear from the meaning of 'pleading' as an entreaty; for a plea not to be alienated, when the subject is the inflow of good from the Divine, is an entreaty to be accepted. Good which flows in from the Lord is constantly at hand and so to speak entreating; but it is up to the individual to accept it. This explains why a plea not to become alienated means a constant entreaty, from which it follows that 'not hearing' means non-acceptance. The sense of the letter refers to a number of persons - to the ten sons of Jacob and to Joseph; but the internal sense makes them all refer to the one same subject. The truths known to the external Church or truths present within the natural, which are represented by 'the ten sons of Jacob', are the truths present within a person's external man, while the celestial of the spiritual, which is represented by 'Joseph', is truth from the Divine present in his internal man. The situation is the same here as it is with historical descriptions in other places in the Word; different spiritual realities are meant by the persons in those descriptions, and those realities all have regard to the one same subject.