1165. In the Word 'Mizraim' or Egypt means knowledge, that is, various facts, by which people wish to probe into the arcana of faith and so confirm the false assumptions acquired in that way. 'Mizraim' also means simply knowledge, and so knowledge that is useful. This is clear not only from the places just quoted but also from very many others which would fill up page after page if they were all included. See Isaiah 19:1-end; Isaiah 30:1-3; 31:1-3; Jeremiah 2:18, 36; Jeremiah 42:14-end; Jeremiah 46:1-end; Ezekiel 16:26; 23:3; Ezekiel 29:1-end; Ezekiel 30:1-end; Hosea 7:11; 9:3, 6; 11:1, 5, 11; Micah 7:12 [NCBS: 7:15]; Zechariah 10:10-11; Psalms 80:8 and following verses.

2311. That such is the nature of the Word and that in this way it differs from all other literature is also evident from the consideration that not only all names mean real things, as shown already in 1224, 1264, 1876, 1888, but also that all expressions possess a spiritual sense and so mean in heaven something different from what they do on earth. And this is quite invariably so in both the prophetical parts and in the historical sections. When these names and expressions are interpreted in a heavenly sense according to the meaning they have throughout the whole of the Word, the internal sense, which is the Word among angels, emerges. The relationship of these two senses of the Word is like that of the body and the soul - the literal sense being like the body, the internal sense like the soul. Just as the body lives by means of the soul so does the literal sense by means of the internal sense. By way of the internal sense the Lord's life flows into the letter according to the affection of the person reading it. This shows how holy the Word is, though it does not seem so to worldly minds.