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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5326. 'I am Pharaoh' means that this made the natural what it was. This is clear from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the natural, dealt with in 5079, 5080, 5095, 5160. The fact that 'I am Pharaoh' means that this made the natural what it was is evident from all that immediately follows. For the declaration 'without you shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt' means that the celestial of the spiritual was the origin of all the power in both parts of the natural. Also, because things present in the natural are meant by the words that follow, the expression 'I am Pharaoh' therefore comes first, the term natural being used to mean the natural which has the celestial of the spiritual as its origin. The implications of this are as follows: With someone who is being created anew, that is, being regenerated, the natural is entirely different from what it is with someone who is not being regenerated. In the case of someone who is not being regenerated, his natural is everything; it is the source of his thought, and it is the source of his desires. His rational is not the source of it, and his spiritual still less so, because these are closed and for the most part dead.

[2] But in the case of someone who is being regenerated everything is made spiritual. The spiritual not only determines the thoughts and desires of the natural but also constitutes the natural in exactly the same way as a cause constitutes its effect; for nothing else acts within any effect except its cause. Thus the natural becomes like the spiritual, for the contents of the natural - such as any knowledge or cognition which springs from something in the natural world - do not act by themselves; they serve merely to support the spiritual so that it can act within and through the natural, and so act on the level of the natural. The same is so within an effect. An effect holds more things within itself than its cause does; yet the only purpose such things serve is to enable the cause to achieve the actual effect within the effect and to present itself in actual fact on the level of effect. From these few comments one may see what the natural is like in the case of a person who has been created anew, that is, regenerated - that regeneration, which made the natural what it was, being meant by 'I am Pharaoh'.