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.

3508. 'And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' means the effort of the affection for good to acquire the truth that was to be allied to the Divine Rational. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' as the good of the natural, dealt with already, and therefore the affection for the good of the rational within the natural is meant, for the good that is within the natural does not belong to the natural but to the rational within the natural, see 3498; from the meaning of 'going to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' as the effort to acquire truth to itself, for 'the field' is where good ground exists, 3500, 'venison' truth acquired from good, 3501, 'to bring it [home]' to acquire it, and so to ally it to the Divine Rational.

[2] Here, as stated above, the subject in the highest sense is the glorification of the Lord's Natural, and in the representative sense the regeneration of the natural with man, 3490. It is according to order that this is effected by means of truth, that is, by means of cognitions of good and truth, for without these the natural cannot receive light from the rational, that is, by way of the rational, and so be regenerated. Cognitions are vessels for receiving good and truth entering in from the rational. The way in which the vessels receive and the amount they receive determine the nature of their enlightenment and how far they are enlightened. Vessels which receive good and truth from the rational are the truths themselves belonging to the natural, which are no more than facts, cognitions, and matters of doctrine. From the order according to which they flow in and from the order which exists among them there they become goods. This is the origin of the good of the natural.