Ephraim was the second son born to Joseph in Egypt and was, along with his older brother Manasseh, elevated by Jacob to the same status as Joseph’s brothers. Thus when the tribes of Israel are named, Ephraim and Manasseh are named as patriarchs along with their uncles – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin -- but Joseph is not. According to Swedenborg, Ephraim represents the intellectual aspect of the church, the part that explores and understands what is true – especially the true ideas that can be drawn from the Bible. Manasseh, meanwhile, represents the affectional aspect of the church, the part that feels and loves and cares. This plays into the best-known story of Ephraim’s life. When Jacob was old and nearing death, Joseph brought his two sons to be blessed. He presented Manasseh to Jacob’s right hand as the elder, and Ephraim to Jacob’s left hand. But Jacob crossed his hands and gave Ephraim the primary blessing. According to Swedenborg, Manasseh was the elder son because ultimately, what we love makes us who we are; our loves form our lives. So our loves are the most central, leading aspect of our human existence, with our intellect playing a secondary role. But as we develop, we need to reverse those. We can use our intellect to understand what is good and right and force ourselves to do it, even when our desires are for what’s selfish. If we stick to that out of a determination to follow the Lord and be good people, the Lord will eventually remove the selfishness from our hearts so we can truly love what is good. By having Jacob bless Ephraim above Manasseh, the Lord is telling us that we have to put our intellect first to pursue our spiritual journey.

6098. 'And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers' means that it did not come up to their state of life. ¹ This is clear from the meaning of 'attaining to' here as coming up to, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the days' and 'the years of life' as states of spiritual life, as above in 6093, 6095, 6097. The reason 'attaining to' here means coming up to is that his fathers Isaac and Abraham represented higher, that is, more internal, things than he. 'Abraham' in the highest sense represented the Lord's Divine itself, 'Isaac' the Lord's Divine Rational, and 'Jacob' His Divine Natural. For the representation of 'Abraham' as the Lord's Divine itself, see 1965, 1989, 2011, 7245, 7251, 3305 (end), 3439, 3703, 4615; for the representation of 'Isaac' as the Divine Rational, 1893, 2066, 2072, 2083, 2630, 2774, 3012, 3194, 3210, 4615; and for the representation of 'Jacob' as the Divine Natural in respect of truth and in respect of good, 3305, 3509, 3525, 3546, 3576, 3599, 4286, 4538, 4570, 4615. That being so, 'Abraham' also represents the celestial degree with man, 'Isaac' the spiritual degree, and 'Jacob' the natural, for the reason that the regeneration of man is an image of the Glorification of the Lord, 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490, 4402, 5688. From all this one may now see that 'they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers' means that it did not come up to their state of life.

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