6138. 'And we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves' means total submission. This is clear from the meaning of 'us and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135-6137; and from the meaning of 'slaves' as existing without any freedom of one's own, dealt with in 5760, 5763, thus total submission. By receptacles are meant human forms themselves. For human beings are nothing else than forms receiving life from the Lord; yet the nature of those forms is such, owing to people's heredity and their own actions, that they refuse spiritual life coming from the Lord. But once those receptacles have been renounced so completely that they no longer claim any freedom of their own, there is total submission. The person who is being regenerated is brought at length, through the repeated experiences of desolation and sustainment, to a point at which he no longer wishes to be his own man but the Lord's. And once he has become the Lord's he passes into a state in which, if left to himself, he is dejected and gripped by anxiety. But when he is brought out of that state he returns to the bliss and happiness that are his, to the kind of state all the angels experience.

[2] The Lord desires any person's total submission so that He can make him blissful and happy. That is, He does not want him to be partly his own man and partly the Lord's, for then there are two masters whom a person cannot serve simultaneously, Matthew 6:24. Total submission is again meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Whoever loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:37.

'Father or mother' in general means those aspects of a person essentially his own by virtue of his heredity, and 'son or daughter' those essentially his own by virtue of his own actions. What is essentially a person's own is also meant by his 'soul' in John,

He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it into eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. John 11:25-26.

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Another disciple said, Lord, let me first go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their dead. Matthew 8:21-22.

[3] The need for total submission is perfectly clear from the Church's first commandment,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30.

Thus since love to the Lord does not come from man but from the Lord Himself, all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, which are recipients, must be the Lord's; they must therefore be submitted totally to Him. Such a submission is what is meant by 'we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves'; for 'Pharaoh' represents the natural in general, which is subject to the control of the internal celestial, in the highest sense to the control of the Lord, who is 'Joseph' in that highest sense.

5763. 'He with whom it is found will be my slave' means that the one with whom that thing is present will forever be without his freedom. This is clear from the meaning of 'slave' as being without one's freedom, as above in 5760. The implications of this are as follows: Joseph's cup made of silver, placed on Joseph's orders with Benjamin, means interior truth, 5736, 5747. Anyone in possession of interior truth knows that everything true and good comes from the Lord, also that all freedom of one's own or originating in a person himself is hellish freedom. For when a person is motivated by his own freedom to do or think something, he does and thinks nothing but evil. He is consequently the devil's slave, hell being the origin of all evil that flows in. He also has a feeling of delight in that freedom, because it fits in with the evil in which he is steeped and into which he was born. Consequently he needs to rid himself of the freedom which is his own and take on heavenly freedom instead, which consists in willing what is good and therefore doing what is good, and in desiring what is true and therefore thinking what is true. When a person receives this freedom he is the Lord's slave or servant, in which case he enjoys true freedom and is not in the slavery in which he had been previously and which seemed like freedom. This is what is meant by being forever without his own freedom. What the essence and origin of freedom are, see 2870, 2893; true freedom consists in being led by the Lord, 2890.