5038. 'A place where the king's bound ones were bound' means the state of those governed by falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'a place' as a state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387, 4321, 4882; and from the meaning of 'the king's bound ones' as those who are governed by falsities and who, being governed by falsities, undergo vastation, and those who, while being regenerated in the world, undergo temptation. For temptation involves the laying waste of falsity and at the same time the consolidation of truth. The expression 'the king's bound ones' is used because 'a king' in the internal sense means truth, 1672, 1728, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, 4789, 4966, and therefore 'his bound ones' means those governed by falsity. The places where the king's bound ones were kept were also called 'pits', which was why Joseph said, in verse 15 of the next chapter,

By theft I have been taken out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have not done anything for which they should have put me in the pit.

As regards 'a pit' meaning a place of vastation, see 4728, 4744.

4321. Though these are apparent contradictions and unbelievable to man, they must not for all that be rejected as untrue, because experience itself declares that they are true. If everything for which the cause is not known were so rejected, countless things that reveal themselves in the natural order, for which scarcely one ten-thousandth of their causes is known, would be rejected. For the arcana belonging to the natural order are so many and so great that those which man knows are scarcely any in comparison with those he does not know. What must the situation be with the arcana that reveal themselves in the sphere above the natural order, that is, in the spiritual world, such as the following?

There is one life alone, and from this all receive their life, each individual in a different way from another. Even the evil receive their life from that one life alone, and so too do the hells. Inflowing life acts according to the way it is received.

Heaven is ordered by the Lord in such a way that it is like a Human Being, on account of which it is called the Grand Man. Consequently everything in the human being corresponds to it.

Without influx from heaven into everything with him the human being cannot remain in being even for an instant. All in the Grand Man occupy an unchanging position determined by the nature and the state of the truth and good which governs them. Position there is not position but state, and therefore those on the left are seen constantly on the left, those on the right constantly on the right, those in front constantly in front, and those behind constantly behind. They are seen to be on a level horizontal with the head, chest, back, loins, or feet, overhead or underfoot, straight ahead or obliquely, closer in or further away. They occupy these positions, no matter how or in which direction a spirit turns.

The Lord as the Sun is seen constantly on the right, in the middle of the sky there, a little above a line horizontal with the right eye; and everything exists in relation to the Lord as the Sun and to the Centre there, and so in relation to its one and only source from which it is brought into being and kept in being. And since all appear before the Lord occupying their own unchanging positions, which are determined by states of good and truth, they are therefore seen in the same way by everyone, for the reason that the Lord's life, and therefore the Lord Himself, is present in everyone in heaven.

And there are countless other arcana besides these.