7972. 'And the children of Israel travelled from Rameses to Succoth' means the first state of departure and the essential nature of it. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling' as the order and established patterns of life, dealt with in 1293, 3335, 4882, 5493, 5605, so that the travels of the children of Israel, described in Exodus, are states of life and their changes from first to last. At this point therefore 'the travelling from Rameses to Succoth' means the first state and the essential nature of it. For names of places, like those of persons too, all mean spiritual things and their essential nature, see 768, 1224, 1264, 1876, 1888, 3422, 4298, 4710, 4442, 5095, 6516.

5095. 'To the king of Egypt' means which were subordinate to the interior natural. This is clear from the representation of Pharaoh or 'the king of Egypt' in this chapter as a new state of the natural man, dealt with in 5079, 5080, consequently as the interior natural since this had been made new. As to what the interior natural is, and the exterior natural, see immediately above in 5094. The nature of the internal sense of the Word in the historical sections and in the prophetical parts must be stated briefly. When the historical sense mentions a number of persons - as when Joseph, Pharaoh, the chief of the attendants, the cupbearer, and the baker are mentioned here - various things are indeed meant by them in the internal sense, yet only as all these exist in one person. The reason for this is that names mean different spiritual things, as they do here: 'Joseph' represents the Lord as regards the celestial-spiritual from the rational and also within the natural, 'Pharaoh' represents Him as regards the new state of the natural man, that is, as regards the interior natural, 'the cupbearer and the baker' as regards the things that belong to the external natural. Such is the nature of the internal sense. The same is so in other places, for example when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are mentioned; in the sense of the letter they are three different persons, but in the highest sense all three represent the Lord - 'Abraham' the Divine itself, 'Isaac' His Divine Intellectual, ¹ and 'Jacob' His Divine Natural. The same may be seen in the Prophets where sometimes the text consists of mere names, either of persons or of kingdoms or of cities; yet all of them together present and describe a single entity in the internal sense. Anyone unaware of this may be easily misled by the sense of the letter into visualizing a variety of things, with the result that the idea of a single entity disappears.

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