65. 3. The description of the battle between the ram and the goat in Daniel shows that in the Word, goats mean people who are devoted to a faith divorced from caring. Spiritually understood, everything in Daniel, like everything in Sacred Scripture as a whole (as noted in Sacred Scripture 5-26), is about matters of heaven and the church. This then holds true for what it says in chapter 8 about the battle between the ram and the goat, as follows:

In a vision I saw a ram that had two tall horns, the taller of which rose up behind [the other]. With its horn the ram pushed westward, northward, and southward and became enormous.

Then I saw a goat that came from the west across the surface of the whole earth; it had a horn between its eyes. It charged at the ram in the fury of its strength, broke the ram’s two horns, and cast the ram to the ground and trampled it. The large horn of the goat was broken, and four horns sprang up in its place. A little horn came out of one of them, which grew tremendously toward the south, toward the dawn, and toward the glory, and even to the host of the heavens, and cast down to earth some of the host and some of the stars, and trampled them. The goat even exalted itself toward the Leader of the Host, and took the daily offerings away from him and cast down the dwelling place of his sanctuary, because it cast truth to the ground. And I heard a holy one saying, “How long will this vision last concerning the daily offerings and this destructive sinning, the trampling of the holy place and the host?” And he said, “Until the evening [and] the morning: then the holy place will be set right.” (Daniel 8:2-14)

5. 1. What the spiritual meaning is. The spiritual meaning is not the sense that shines from the literal one when one is studying the Word and interpreting it in order to confirm some dogma of the church. This sense is the Word’s literal sense. Rather its spiritual meaning is one not apparent in the literal one. The spiritual meaning lies within the literal one, like the soul within the body, like thought within the eyes, and affection within the face, which operate in concert, like cause and effect.

That spiritual meaning is what principally causes the Word to be spiritual, not only for people, but also for angels. Consequently that meaning is the means by which the Word communicates with the heavens.