6272. 'Crosswise he put out his hands' means thus out of keeping with true order. This is clear from the meaning of 'crosswise putting out one's hands' as not in keeping with true order; for by acting in that way Israel makes the younger the firstborn and the older the later-born, so that the truth of faith is made prior and higher and the good of charity posterior and lower. (For the birthright consists in holding the prior and higher position, 3325.) How much evil is introduced into the Church by that exchange of positions is perfectly plain, for by making the exchange people cast themselves into such obscurity that they do not know what good is, or thus what truth is. For good is like a flame and truth is like the light that shines from it. If you take away the flame the light perishes too; or if any light is visible it is like a false light which does not come from the flame. That exchange of positions also causes Churches to clash and quarrel with one another about what is true, one group declaring that this idea is true, another that it is false. Worse than that, once they make faith take precedence in a group of people forming the Church, they begin to separate faith from charity, to rate charity as nothing in comparison with faith, and so to have no concern about the life they lead - a way of thinking to which a person is by natural disposition also inclined. The Church as a consequence perishes, for the life he leads is what constitutes the Church in a person, not doctrine divorced from life. Nor thus does trust, which is a high degree of faith, constitute the Church; for genuine trust cannot exist except with those who have charity since a life filled with trust springs from charity. Besides, the good of charity is in reality the firstborn, that is, occupies the first place, while the truth of faith only appears to be, see 3324, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3701, 4243, 4244, 4247, 4337, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930, 4977.

5270. 'Will be seven years of famine' means a consequent absence and seeming deprivation of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'famine' as an absence of cognitions, dealt with in 1460, 3364, and so a deprivation of truth. For falsities banished truths to such an extent that the latter did not seem to exist any longer, which is the meaning of the descriptions in verses 4, 7, 20-21, 24 - 'the lean and bad cows devoured the seven fat cows; they devoured them completely and no one would have known that they had devoured them', and also 'the thin heads swallowed up the seven good heads', 5206, 5207, 5217. The implication of all this - the idea that at first truth will be multiplied in both parts of the natural, but that subsequently there will be an absence of truth so great that it scarcely seems to exist - is an arcanum which can be known to none except him who is allowed to know the nature of human reformation and regeneration. Such being the subject in the internal sense of what follows after this, a brief statement about it needs to be made in advance here.

[2] When a person is being reformed he begins by learning truths from the Word, or from what he is taught, and then storing those truths away in his memory. The person who is unable to be reformed imagines that once he has learned truths and stored them away in his memory there is nothing more to be done. But he is much mistaken. The truths he has taken in need to be introduced and joined to good; but they cannot be so introduced and joined to good as long as the evils of self-love and love of the world remain in the natural man. These two loves served initially in the introduction of such truths, but the latter cannot possibly become joined to them. Therefore so that a joining to good may be effected the truths that have been introduced and held there by those loves must first be banished, though they are not actually banished but are withdrawn to a more interior position, with the result that they do not seem to exist, which is why the expression 'a seeming deprivation of truth' is used. Once this has happened the natural receives light from within and the evils of self-love and love of the world give way; and to the extent that they do give way the truths are restored and joined to good. In the Word a state when a person is seemingly deprived of truths is called desolation. It is also compared to the evening in which a person dwells before he moves on into morning, which was why in the representative Church the day began in the evening, 883.