6109. 'And there was no bread in all the land' means that good was not apparent any longer. This is clear from the meaning of 'bread' as the good of love and charity, dealt with just above in 6106; and from the meaning of 'none in all the land' as the fact that none was apparent any longer. The subject in what follows below is the internal celestial, how it brought everything in the natural into order beneath the general whole, to the end that factual knowledge might become joined to the Church's truths, and through those truths to spiritual good, and through this good to the internal celestial. But since factual knowledge cannot be brought into order beneath the general whole except through stages when good is laid waste and truth is made desolate, and then by stages of sustainment, both the latter and the former stages are dealt with in the internal sense of what follows next. These things rarely happen to a person while he lives in the world, for a number of reasons; but in the next life they happen to all who are being regenerated. And since they do not happen to a person while he is in the world it is not surprising if they appear to him as things unknown and strike him as deep secrets about which no one has heard before.

6106. 'And Joseph sustained his father, and his brothers, and all his father's household with bread' means that from the internal celestial there was a constant influx of good into spiritual good and the Church's truths in the natural, which gave them their life. This is clear from the meaning of 'sustaining with bread' as an influx of good, for 'sustaining' here is a constant inflowing, which gives a person spiritual life, while 'bread' is the good of love, 276, 680, 2165, 2177, 3464, 3478, 3735, 3813, 4211, 4217, 4735, 4976, 5915; from the representation of 'Joseph' as the internal celestial, dealt with in 5869, 5877; from the representation of Israel, to whom 'father' refers here, as spiritual good from the natural, and from the representation of his sons, to whom 'brothers' refers here, as the Church's truths in the natural, both dealt with in 6101; and from the meaning of 'all his father's household' as everything in its entirety which belongs to spiritual good and is derived from that good. From all this it is evident that 'Joseph sustained his father, and his brothers, and all his father's household with bread' means that there was a constant influx of the good of love from the internal celestial into spiritual good and the Church's truths in the natural, and into everything belonging to spiritual good and derived from it.