8974. 'When you buy a Hebrew slave' means those within the Church who are imbued with the truths of religious teachings and not with the good that accords with those truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'buying' as acquiring to oneself and making one's own, dealt with in 4397, 5374, 5397, 5406, 5410, 5426, 7999; and from the meaning of 'a Hebrew slave' as those within the Church who are imbued with the truths of religious teachings and not with the goodness of life that accords with those truths. For 'a slave' or 'a servant' has reference to those who are imbued with truth and not with complementary good, and in general to truth in relation to good, 3409. And 'Hebrew' has reference to things connected with the Church and to those connected with some servitude; for its reference to things connected with the Church, see 5136, 5236, 6675, 6684, and for its reference to those connected with some servitude, 1703, 1741, 5013.

Since the regulations that come next refer to male slaves and female slaves from the children of Israel, what they hold within them in the internal sense must be stated. Anyone can see that they contain the arcana of heaven, since they were declared and commanded by Jehovah on Mount Sinai to Moses orally, and since they follow very soon after the words of the Ten Commandments. Without such arcana they would be no more than civil and criminal laws like those of other nations on earth, which do not have any arcanum of heaven within them. But the arcana they contain are not evident except to angels in heaven. Consequently they do not become evident to people in the world except through the internal sense, because this sense teaches the way in which angels perceive the Word, and therefore teaches the arcana which the Word holds within itself. What those arcana are, and the nature of them, will be evident below from the explanation of specific details.

[2] So that a person may have a general idea of those things, a brief statement is needed to show what 'Hebrew slaves' in particular means in the internal sense. In the spiritual Church, which the children of Israel represented, there are two kinds of people. There are those who are imbued with the truth of faith but not with the complementary goodness of life, and there are those who are imbued with the good of charity and with the complementary truth of faith. Those imbued with the good of charity and complementary truth of faith constitute the truest part of the Church, being members of the internal Church. In the internal sense of the Word they are those called 'the children of Israel'. They are intrinsically free, because they are imbued with good; for those who are led by the Lord through good are free, 892, 905, 2870-2893. Those however who are imbued with the truth of faith and not with the complementary goodness of life are members of the external spiritual Church. These are the ones who are meant in the internal sense of the Word by 'Hebrew slaves'. The reason why these people are represented by slaves or servants is that relatively the things which belong to the external Church are nothing other than a body of servants. The same applies also to the relationship of the truth of faith-to the good of charity; for the truth of faith acts like a servant to lead a member of the Church into the good of charity.

[3] In addition it should be recognized that those who think that the all of the Church, thus the all of salvation, consists in the truth of faith and not in the good of charity, and also those who do good solely in a spirit of obedience and not out of love and affection, cannot be regenerated in the way that those people are who are imbued with the good of charity, that is, who do good out of love and affection. They can, it is true, be reformed, but not regenerated. The reformation of them is the subject in the internal sense at this point, in the laws regarding male slaves and female slaves. The arcana of that reformation are not known to anyone at the present day, the reason being that almost everywhere within the Church people are ignorant of what difference the truth of faith can make to salvation, and what difference the good of charity can make. Indeed people are ignorant of what charity is, and also that charity and faith must be married to each other if anything of the Church is to come into being in a person; for the marriage of goodness and truth constitutes the Church itself, because it is heaven within a person, 2173, 2618, 2728, 2729, 2803, 3132, 3155, 4434, 4823, 5194, 5502, 6179.

5013. 'See, he has brought us a Hebrew man' means something servile. This is clear from the meaning of 'a Hebrew man', an expression that is used to refer to servitude, dealt with in 1703. The meaning is also plain from what follows below, for there Joseph is called 'a Hebrew slave' and also simply 'a slave' - 'The Hebrew slave whom you have brought to us came to me' verse 17, and 'this is what your slave did to me' verse 19. The principal reason why 'a Hebrew man' here means something servile is that those governed by unspiritual natural truth and good, represented here by 'Potiphar and his wife', do not regard spiritual truth and good, represented here by 'Joseph', as anything other than their slave. So far as both the life and the doctrine of these people are concerned, order is upside down, for with them the natural is lord and the spiritual is slave, whereas, when true order exists, the spiritual is lord and the natural is slave. For the spiritual is prior, more internal and higher, also closer to the Divine, while the natural is posterior, more external and lower, and further removed from the Divine. For this reason both with the individual person and within the Church the spiritual is compared to heaven and also actually called heaven, and the natural is compared to the earth and also actually called the earth. This also explains why, when spiritual people - that is, those with whom the spiritual is lord - are seen in the next life in the light of heaven, they have their heads pointing upwards towards the Lord and their feet downwards towards hell. But when natural people - that is, those with whom the natural is lord - are seen in the light of heaven, they have their feet pointing upwards and their heads downwards; and this is so, even though they are seen differently in their own light, which is a feeble light produced by the evil desires and consequent false notions they are steeped in, 1528, 3340, 4214, 4418, 4531, 4532.

[2] The way natural people look upon spiritual things as so to speak a body of slaves was also represented by the way the Egyptians regarded the Hebrews as nothing else than their slaves; for the Egyptians represented those who are preoccupied with natural knowledge, and so are natural people, whereas the Hebrews represented those who belong to the Church and so are spiritual when considered in relation to the Egyptians. Furthermore the Egyptians thought the Hebrews were of so low or slave-like a degree that it was an abomination to them to eat with Hebrews, Genesis 43:32; also the sacrifices which Hebrews offered were an abomination to them, Exodus 8:26.