Arcana Coelestia # 6637
6637. 'These are the names of the children of Israel' means the essential nature of the Church. This is clear from the meaning of' the name as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 2628, 2724, 3006, 3421; from the representation of 'the sons of Israel' as spiritual truths, dealt with in 5414, 5879, 5951; and from the representation of 'Israel' as the good of truth, which is spiritual good, dealt with in 3654, 4598, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5833. Since Israel' represents the good of truth or spiritual good and 'his sons' represent spiritual truths in the natural, 'the sons of Israel' also represent the Church, for what makes it the Church is spiritual good and the truths that spring from that good. A person without spiritual good, that is, the good of charity, and without spiritual truths, that is, the truths of faith, does not belong to the Church in spite of having been born within the Church. The whole of the Lord's heavenly kingdom possesses the good of love and faith, and unless the Church possesses good like that it cannot be the Church since it is not joined to heaven; for the Church is the Lord's kingdom on earth.
[2] The term 'Church' is not used because it is the place where the Word is and teachings drawn from it, or because it is where the Lord is known and the sacraments are celebrated. Rather it is the Church because it lives in accordance with the Word or with teachings drawn from the Word, and seeks to make those teachings its rule of life. People who do not live like this do not belong to the Church but are outside it; and those who lead wicked lives, thus lives contrary to that teaching, are further away outside the Church than gentiles who know nothing whatever about the Word, the Lord, or the sacraments. For since those people are acquainted with the forms of good that the Church fosters and with the truths it teaches they annihilate the Church within themselves, something gentiles cannot do because they are unacquainted with those things. It should also be realized that everyone who leads a good life, in charity and faith, is a Church, and is a kingdom of the Lord. He is for that reason also called a temple, and a house of God too. Those who are Churches individually, no matter how remote from one another they may be, constitute one Church collectively. This then is the Church meant by the expression 'the children of Israel' here and in what follows.
Exodus 1
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Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt (every man and his household came with Jacob):
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Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
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Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
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Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
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All the souls who came out of Jacob's body were seventy souls, and Joseph was in Egypt already.
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Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
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The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
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Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph.
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He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.
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Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land."
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Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
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But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They were grieved because of the children of Israel.
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The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,
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and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.
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The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,
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and he said, "When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."
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But the midwives feared God, and didn't do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.
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The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and have saved the boys alive?"
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The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous, and give birth before the midwife comes to them."
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God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.
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It happened, because the midwives feared God, that he gave them families.
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Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."
