In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

1438. 'And they came into the land of Canaan' means that He attained to the celestial things of love. This is clear from what has just been stated about the land of Canaan. Here the Lord's life at first is described, that is to say, from birth to childhood, during which period He attained to the celestial things of love. The celestial things of love are the essentials themselves, and everything else comes from these. It was with celestial things that He was endowed first of all, for it was from these as from its seed that all else was then made fruitful. With Him the seed itself was celestial, for He was born from Jehovah, and therefore He alone has had that seed within Himself. All others, without exception, have no other seed than what is filthy and of hell, in which their proprium consists and from which it is derived; and this comes with that which is inherited from the father, as is well known to everyone. Consequently unless they receive from the Lord a new seed and a new proprium, that is, a new will and a new understanding, they are inevitably consigned to hell, a place from which all, not only men but also spirits and angels, are being pulled out and constantly withheld by the Lord.