6273. 'For Manasseh was the firstborn' means since good does indeed occupy the first place. This is clear from the representation of 'Manasseh' as good belonging to the will, dealt with before; and from the meaning of 'the birthright' as the prior and higher position, dealt with in 3325, so that 'the firstborn' is the one who occupies the first place. Is anyone incapable of seeing from natural light alone, provided a superior light brightens it a little, that good occupies the first place, as also do the intentions in a person's will, and that truth occupies the second, as also do the thoughts in his mind? Is anyone also incapable of seeing that the intentions in a person's will cause him to think in one particular way and no other, consequently that the good he possesses causes him to think that this or that is true; so that truth occupies the second place and good the first? Think and reflect on whether truth that composes faith can take root anywhere else than in good, or whether faith other than that which has taken root there is faith. From this you will be able to decide which is the primary or essential element for the Church, that is, for the person in whom the Church exists.

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.