Gates" in ancient times had a significance that does not hold in the modern world. Cities then were enclosed by walls for protection; gates in the walls let people in and out to do their business, but were also the weak points in the cities' defenses. In the Bible, cities on one level represent the minds of individual people. On a broader level, they represent beliefs shared by a community. The gates, then, represent openings where the Lord can feed us an understanding of truth and a desire for good. They also represent points where the hells can invade and sway us with false ideas and evil desires. We are kept in balance during our lifetimes, with influences from both the Lord and from hell. Ideally, we will over our lifetimes continue to invite the Lord farther and farther in and drive the hells back until ultimately the Lord can occupy our minds completely. And that point our belief in Him and His power and love will hold the gates and deny evil any entrance. As individuals, we at that point become angels. As communities, we at that point become part of the Lord's church. And at that point the gates become an entry point, introductory truths that allow people to enter churches and start bringing the Lord into their lives.

4963. 'And Joseph' means the celestial of the spiritual from the rational. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial-spiritual man that comes from the rational, dealt with in 4286. Here therefore, since the Lord is the subject, the Lord's Internal Man is represented by him. Everyone born a human being is external and internal. His external man is that which is seen with the eyes; it is that which enables him to live in association with other people and enables him to carry out what belongs properly to the natural world. But the internal man is one that is not seen with the eyes; it is what enables a person to live in association with spirits and angels and to carry through what belongs properly to the spiritual world. Everyone has an internal and an external, that is, the internal man and the external man exist, to the end that through man heaven may be joined to the world. For heaven flows by way of the internal man into the external and from that influx gains a perception of what exists in the world, while the external man in the world gains from the same influx a perception of what exists in heaven. It is to this end that the human being has been created the way he has.

[2] The Lord's Human too had an External and an Internal because it pleased Him to be born like any other human being. The External, or His External Man, has been represented by 'Jacob' and after that by 'Israel', but His Internal Man is represented by 'Joseph'. The latter - the Internal Man - is what is called the celestial-spiritual man from the rational; or what amounts to the same, the Lord's Internal, which was the Human, was the celestial of the spiritual from the rational. This, and the glorification of it, are dealt with in the internal sense of the present chapter and those that follow it in which Joseph is the subject. What the celestial of the spiritual from the rational is has been explained already in 4286, 4585, 4592, 4594, namely that which comes above the celestial of the spiritual from the natural, represented by 'Israel'.

[3] The Lord was indeed born like any other human being. But it is well known that everyone who is born depends for his make-up on both his father and his mother; also that he derives his inmost self from his father, but his more external aspects, or those which clothe his inmost self, from his mother. That is to say, both what he derives from his father and what he derives from his mother are defiled with hereditary evil. But in the Lord's case it was different. That which He derived from His mother possessed a hereditary nature essentially the same as that existing in any other human being; but what He derived from His Father, who was Jehovah, was Divine. Consequently the Lord's Internal Man was unlike the internal of any other human being, for His Inmost Self was Jehovah. Being intermediate this is therefore called the celestial of the spiritual from the rational. But in the Lord's Divine mercy more will be said about this later on.