8857. It is similar with love to the Lord. When that love is dominant it is present in every aspect of his life, as when he loves his monarch or loves his parent. While he is in their presence love towards them shines from every part of his face, is heard in every syllable of his speech, and is apparent in every one of his gestures. This is how to understand the command ¹ to have the Lord unceasingly before one's eyes and to love Him above all, with all one's soul and all one's heart.

Footnotes:

904. Verse 14. And I saw, signifies prediction respecting the separation of the good from the evil. This is evident from the fact that "seeing" involves the things that are seen, and these are what now follow; and as these involve in the spiritual sense the first or general separation of the good from the evil, so here, "I saw" signifies prediction respecting this separation. It is to be known that in what follows in this chapter separation in general is predicted, and in the following chapters separation in particular, or specifically, which is described by "the seven angels having the seven vials of the wrath of God." It is according to Divine order that the separation of the good from the evil should be thus described, which order is that what is general should come before the setting forth of the particular and the most particular or the specific things. It is according to Divine order for what is general to precede, in order that particulars may be introduced into them and rightly arranged, and made homogeneous and joined together in close connection.

(On this subject see what is set forth in the Arcana Coelestia, namely, that general things precede, into which particulars are introduced, and most particular things into these, n. 920, 4325, 4329, 4345, 5208, 6089).

That with the man who is being regenerated general things precede, and particular and most particular things follow in order, n. 3057, 4345, 4383, 6089.

That afterwards there is a subordination of all things under the generals in man, and thus connection, n. Arcana Coelestia 5339. That generals may be filled with innumerable things, n. 7131.

That such as a man is in general, such he is in every particular thing, n. 917, 1040, 1316.

That what reigns generally is in all things and in each thing, n. 6159, 7648, 8067, 8853-8857, 8865. All this has been presented to make known why general and generic things are here first stated, and afterwards the particular and most particular things.)

6089. 'And Joseph caused Jacob his father to come' means the presence of general truth coming from the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'causing to come., or bringing to, as causing to be present, and 'coming to someone' as presence, 5934, 6063; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the doctrine of natural truth, and also natural truth itself, dealt with in 3305, 3509, 3525, 3546, 4538, at this point truth in general since his sons represent particular truths. The reason why it comes from the internal is that 'Joseph' is the internal, from which truth in the natural comes. General truth is called 'Joseph's father' because a person first of all is introduced into general truth. After that it is enriched with particular truths, and in the end there comes an insight into those truths from the internal, which is reason and understanding. This is plain to see in a person, for the power of judgement develops in him from young childhood onwards. Something similar happens with spiritual truths and forms of good when a person is being born anew or regenerated. But after the internal has come into being from general truth in the natural the state is turned around; the internal no longer acknowledges truth in the natural as its father but as a servant. That it is then a servant is made clear by Joseph's dream regarding his father, in which he says that the sun and moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to him, which led his father to say,

What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall we indeed come - I and your mother, and your brothers - to bow down to you to the earth? Genesis 37:9-10.

This explains why, in Joseph's presence, the other sons call his father so many times his servant, Genesis 43:28; 44:24, 27, 30-31, besides which Joseph was lord in the whole land of Egypt, thus even over his father.