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Genesis 40

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1 It happened after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord, the king of Egypt.

2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

3 He put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he took care of them. They stayed in prison many days.

5 They both dreamed a dream, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison.

6 Joseph came in to them in the morning, and saw them, and saw that they were sad.

7 He asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house, saying, "Why do you look so sad today?"

8 They said to him, "We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it." Joseph said to them, "Don't interpretations belong to God? Please tell it to me."

9 The chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, "In my dream, behold, a vine was in front of me,

10 and in the vine were three branches. It was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes.

11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand."

12 Joseph said to him, "This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days.

13 Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head, and restore you to your office. You will give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, the way you did when you were his cupbearer.

14 But remember me when it will be well with you, and please show kindness to me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.

15 For indeed, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon."

16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, "I also was in my dream, and behold, three baskets of white bread were on my head.

17 In the uppermost basket there was all kinds of baked food for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head."

18 Joseph answered, "This is its interpretation. The three baskets are three days.

19 Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from off you, and will hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from off you."

20 It happened the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants, and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants.

21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand;

22 but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them.

23 Yet the chief cupbearer didn't remember Joseph, but forgot him.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 5128

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5128. 'When you were his cupbearer' means as is the normal position for sensory impressions of this kind. This is clear from the meaning of 'cupbearer' as the powers of the senses, that is, those of them that are subject to the understanding part of the mind, dealt with in 5077, 5082 - the normal position being meant by the expression 'when you were'. The need for sensory impressions to be subject and subordinate to rational ideas has been referred to already in what has gone before; but since the subjection and subordination of them is the subject here in the internal sense, something more must be said about the nature of this.

[2] The person with whom the senses have been made subject is called a rational person, but a person with whom they have not is called one ruled by his senses. But whether a person is rational or whether he is one ruled by his senses is scarcely discernible by others; only the individual himself can know, if he examines himself inwardly, that is, if he examines what he wills and what he thinks. Others cannot know from a person's speech whether he is one ruled by his senses or whether he is a rational person, nor can they know it from his actions, because the life of his thought held within his speech and the life of his will held within his actions cannot be perceived by any of the physical senses. These hear merely the sound he utters, or they see the movement made by his body together with the affection that impels him to make it. One cannot tell whether this affection is artificial or genuine. In the next life however those who are governed by good perceive clearly both what is held within a person's speech and what is held within his actions, and so perceive the nature of the life within them and where that life has its origin. Yet even in the world several indications exist which enable one to deduce to some extent whether the senses are subject to the rational, or the rational to the senses; or what amounts to the same, whether a person is rational or ruled solely by his senses. Those indications are as follows: If one notices that a person who makes false assumptions is not ready to become more enlightened but casts truths altogether aside, dispenses with reason, and obstinately defends falsities, this is an indication that he is ruled by his senses and is not a rational person. His rational is closed, so that it does not let in the light of heaven.

[3] Ruled even more by their senses are those who are quite convinced by what is false, for such a conviction closes the rational altogether. It is one thing to make false assumptions, another to be convinced by what is false. Those convinced by what is false do have some light shining within their natural, but this is like the light in winter. When it shines among them in the next life that light is as bright as snow; but as soon as the light of heaven falls on it, it becomes a dull light, the degree and nature of their conviction making it dark as night. The same is also evident in these people while they are living in the world, for during that time they are unable to see the faintest glimmer of truth. Indeed because of the dullness and benightedness due to the falsity of which they are convinced, they see no value at all in truths and laugh at them. To the simple those people sometimes give the impression that they are rational, for by means of that snowy-white wintry light they are able to employ clever reasonings to substantiate falsities and make them look like truths. This kind of conviction exists in many of the learned, more than in every other kind of person, for they have used syllogistic and philosophical reasonings, and finally much factual knowledge to become firmly convinced by falsities. Among the ancients such people were called serpents belonging to the tree of knowledge, 195-197, but today they may be called those who are ruled inwardly by their senses and are devoid of true rationality.

[4] The main indication that shows whether someone is ruled wholly by his senses or whether he is a rational person exists in the life he leads. By this one does not mean the kind of life that is evident in his words and deeds but the kind that is held inwardly in these. For the source of the life within his words is his thought, and the source of the life within his deeds is his will, both having their origin in his intentions or end in view. The nature therefore of the intentions or end in view present within his words and deeds determines the nature of the life they hold within them, for without the life within them words are mere sounds, while deeds are mere motions. This kind of life is also what is meant when one speaks of life continuing after death. If a person is rational his words flow from right thinking and his deeds from right willing; that is, his words are a product of faith and his deeds a product of charity. But if a person is not rational he can, it is true, make a pretence of acting as one who is rational, and likewise of speaking as one who is such; but no life at all is coming from his rational. For a life of evil closes entirely the path to or communication with the rational, which causes him to be a merely natural person or one ruled by his senses.

[5] There are two things which not only close that path of communication but also rob a person of the ability ever to become rational - deceit and profanation. Deceit is like a subtle poison which affects the inward parts, while profanation is that which mixes up falsities with truths and evils with forms of good. The two completely destroy the rational. Present with everyone there are forms of good and truth which have been stored away by the Lord since earliest childhood. In the Word these forms of good and truth are called remnants, regarding which see 468, 530, 560, 561, 661, 1050, 1738, 1906, 2284; and it is these remnants that deceit poisons and that profanation mixes up with falsities and evils. For what profanation is, see 593, 1008, 1010, 1059, 1327, 1328, 2051, 2426, 3398, 3402, 3489, 3898, 4289, 4601. All these indications show to some extent who a rational person is and who one ruled by his senses is.

[6] When the senses have become subject to the rational, the sensory powers that serve to form a person's first mental images receive light which comes through heaven from the Lord; they are at the same time brought into a state of order that enables them to receive that light and agree with the rational. Once they exist in this condition sensory impressions are no longer a barrier that prevents truths from being either acknowledged or seen, for those that are not in keeping with truths are instantly set aside, while those which are in keeping are accepted. Those that are in keeping are now so to speak at the centre and those that are not are on the fringes. Those at the centre are so to speak raised up towards heaven, while those on the fringes are hanging downwards. Those at the centre receive light from the rational, and when they are manifested visually in the next life they look like small glittering stars which radiate light, gradually decreasing, out to the fringes. This is the kind of form that natural or sensory images are being brought into when the rational has dominion and the senses exist subject to it. This is what happens to a person while he is being regenerated, bringing him as a consequence into a state in which truths can be seen and acknowledged by him in abundance. But when the rational is subject to the senses the opposite happens, for in this case falsities are in the middle or at the centre and truths are on the fringes. The falsities at the centre dwell in a certain kind of light, which however is an inferior and deceptive one, like that emitted by a coal fire. Into this there is flowing light on every side from hell. This inferior light is that which is called darkness, for as soon as any light from heaven flows into it, it is converted into darkness.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia # 1906

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1906. 'After Abram had been dwelling ten years in the land of Canaan' means the remnants of good and of truth deriving from that good which the Lord acquired to Himself and by means of which this rational was conceived. This is clear from the meaning of 'ten' as remnants, dealt with already in 576. What remnants are has been stated and shown in 468, 530, 560, 561, 660, 661, 798, 1050; that is to say, they are all the states of affection for good and truth conferred by the Lord on a person from earliest childhood right through to life's end. These states are stored away within him for the use of his life after death, for in the next life all the states of his life return one after another and at that time they undergo modification through the states of good and truth which the Lord has conferred on him. The more remnants he acquires therefore during his lifetime, or the more good and truth he acquires, the happier and more beautiful the rest of his states seem to be when they actually return. The truth of this may become clear to anyone if he gives the matter careful consideration. At birth no one of himself possesses any good at all, but is wholly defiled with hereditary evil. Everything good flows in, such as his love for parents, nursemaids, and playmates, this influx being from innocence. These are the gifts which flow in from the Lord through the heaven of innocence and peace, which is the inmost heaven, and this is the manner in which they are imparted to him during early childhood.

[2] Later on, when he grows up, this good, innocent, and peaceful state of early childhood departs from him little by little; and insofar as he is introduced into the world, he enters into its pleasures and delights, and so into evils, and the heavenly things or the goods of early childhood start to be dispersed. Yet they still remain, it being by means of these that the states are moderated which a person takes to himself and acquires later on. Without them he cannot possibly be truly human, for states in which evil desires or any evils occur, if not moderated by means of states in which the affection for good is present, would be more dreadful than those of any animal. Those states of good are what are called remnants, which are conferred by the Lord and implanted in a person's natural disposition, this being done when the person is not aware of it.

[3] In later life he has further new states conferred on him; but these are not so much states of good as of truth, for as he grows up he has truths bestowed on him, and these in a similar way are stored away within his interior man. By means of these remnants, which are those of truth, and which have been born from the influx of spiritual things from the Lord, a person has the ability to think, and also to understand what the good and truth of civil or public life and moral or private life are, and also to receive spiritual truth, that is, the truth of faith. Yet he has no ability to do these things except by means of the remnants of good which he received in early childhood. Of the existence of remnants, and the fact that they are stored away in man in his interior rational, man is completely unaware. That unawareness is due to thinking that nothing flows in but that everything is innate within him, and thus present within him when he is an infant, though the reality is altogether different from that. Remnants are referred to in various places in the Word, and by them are meant those states by which a person becomes human, and this from the Lord alone.

[4] The remnants which resided with the Lord however were all the Divine states which He acquired to Himself and by means of which He united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence. These are in no way comparable with the remnants that reside with man, for the latter are not Divine but human. The remnants the Lord had are what is meant by the ten years Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. When angels hear the Word they have no knowledge of what 'ten' is; but the moment ten is mentioned by man the idea of remnants comes to them, for 'ten' and 'tenths' in the Word mean remnants, as is clear from what has been stated and shown in 576, 1738. And when they perceive that 'Abram had been dwelling ten years in the land of Canaan' the idea of the Lord comes to them, and with it simultaneously countless things meant by the remnants residing with the Lord when He was in the world.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.