6438. From all that Israel foretold about Joseph, it is also evident that in each detail there is an internal sense, and that without this sense scarcely anything is understood. He who looks only at the sense of the letter may believe that these things that were said about Joseph would happen to his descendants through Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen. 48:1). But in their history in the books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, nothing of the kind is found; for they were not blessed above the rest of the tribes, and they like the rest were led into captivity and dispersed among the Gentiles; from which it is evident that what is stated in the sense of the letter is not signified, but something else that is in the internal sense. Also that without the internal sense it is impossible to know what all these things about Joseph involve-

as that Joseph is "the son of a fruitful one, a fruitful one over a fountain, of a daughter, she marcheth upon the wall; the archers embitter him, and shoot at him, and hate him; and he shall sit in the strength of his bow, and the arms of his hands are made strong by the hands of the mighty Jacob, from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;"

that "the blessings of his father shall prevail above the blessings of his progenitors, even to the desire of the hills of an age;"

and that "they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of the Nazirite of his brethren;"

all and each of which things are such that no one can know what they mean except from the internal sense.