5962. 'And he sent his brothers away, and they went' means a concealment from view. This is clear from the meaning of 'sending away as removing them from himself, consequently his ceasing for that reason to be present with them any longer; and from the meaning of 'going' or going away as living, also living further away from, and abandoning too, dealt with in 3335, 3416, 3690, 4882, 5493, 5696, thus becoming concealed from view. The fact that a removal from the internal celestial and so a concealment of it is referred to now is clear from what follows in the internal sense.

[2] Anyone who does not know the nature of the state of life experienced by spirits and angels in heaven cannot know why a concealment of truth and good is referred to now, when immediately before this they had had the light of truth and good shining on them. The heavenly state is such that spirits and angels pass through morning, midday, and evening, also twilight and morning again, and so on. For them it is morning when the Lord is present, blessing them with evident happiness; and at this time they enjoy a perception of good. Midday has come when they dwell in the light of truths; and it is evening when they are removed from them, in which case the Lord seems to them to be more remote and to be concealed from them. All in heaven undergo and pass through these alternating states; without them they cannot be led to ever greater perfection. For those alternating states establish contrasts for them, and from those contrasts they gain more perfect perception, for from those contrasts they know what does not constitute happiness since they know from them what is not good and what is not true.

[3] It is astonishing, and rightly so, that one state never is or ever will be exactly like another, also that one spirit or angel does not pass through changes of state that are the same as those of another, for the reason that with respect to good and truth one spirit or angel is not exactly like another, even as no one person's face is identical to another's. Even so the Lord makes a unified whole out of those varying individuals. It is a general rule that every whole which has any specific character is made up of varying parts which are brought, as if through agreement and harmony with one another, into such a state of unanimity that they all present themselves as a unified whole. In heaven the unified whole which results or rather the process of being unified is effected by means of love and charity; see also 3241, 3267, 3744, 3745, 3986, 4005, 4149, 5598. In the Word the concealment meant by 'Joseph sent away his brothers, and they went' is called evening, which among the angels has come when they do not perceive that the Lord is present. For heaven possesses a constant perception of the Lord's presence; but when angels pass through a state in which they lack that perception they do not, as before, feel an affection for good or see truth. This causes them distress, but shortly after that, twilight comes, and so morning.

5598. 'And our generation' means regarding the truths of faith there. This is clear from the meaning of 'generation' as the birth of truth from good or faith from charity, dealt with in 1145, 1255, 4070, 4668. The reason 'generation' has this meaning in the internal sense is that in heaven no other kind of birth is meant than what is called regeneration, which is effected by means of the truth of faith and the good of charity. By this kind of generation or birth the children of men become the children of the Lord; these are they who are called 'the born of God' in John 1:13. The variations that exist in the offspring of good from truth and truth from good within that kind of generation are what determine the brotherly or blood relationships and the relationships by marriage that exist in heaven.

[2] In heaven unending variations exist; but those variations are effected by the Lord in such a way that they resemble families in which there are brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandsons, granddaughters, and so on. In general however all are organized into the kind of form that makes one united whole. They are like the variations within the human body, in which no one member is exactly the same as any other; indeed no one part within any member is the same as any other part. Even so, all those varying parts are organized into the kind of form in which they act as a single whole, and each fits in directly or remotely with the activity of another. Seeing a form such as this in the human being, one may deduce what the form must be like in heaven, with which there is a correspondence - a most perfect one - of everything in the human being.