What man thinks when these words are read, and what the angels think,
can be seen from the sense of the letter of the Word and from its
internal sense. Man from the sense of the letter thinks that the
Egyptians and Assyrians are to be converted to God and accepted, and
are then to become one with the Israelitish nation; but angels in
accordance with the internal sense think of the man of the spiritual
church who is here described in that sense, whose spiritual is
"Israel," whose natural is the "Egyptian," and whose rational, which
is the middle, is the "Assyrian."{1} Nevertheless, these two senses
are one because they correspond; and therefore when the angels thus
think spiritually and man naturally they are conjoined almost as body
and soul are; in fact, the internal sense of the Word is its soul and
the sense of the letter is its body. Such is the Word throughout.
This shows that it is a medium of conjunction of heaven with man, and
that its literal sense serves as a base and foundation.
{Footnote 1} In the Word "Egypt" and "Egyptian" signify the
natural and its knowledge (n. 4967, 5079, 5080, 5095, 5160,
5460, 5799, 6015, 6147, 6252, 7355, 7648, 9340, 9391).
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