1002. 'Not eating' means not mixing together. This follows from what has been said above. Regarded in itself eating animal flesh is something profane, for in most ancient times people never ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only different kinds of grain, especially wheaten bread, also the fruit of trees, vegetables, milk, and milk products such as butter. Slaughtering living creatures and eating their flesh was to them abominable, akin to the behaviour of wild animals. Service and use alone was demanded of those creatures, as is clear from Genesis 1:29-30. But in the process of time when mankind began to be as savage as wild animals, indeed more savage, they first began to slaughter living creatures and eat their flesh. And because man had become such, he was permitted to do so and is still permitted today. And insofar as he does so from conscience, it is quite legitimate, for his conscience is given form from all those things he presumes to be true and so legitimate. Consequently nobody nowadays stands in any sense condemned because he eats meat.

8049. 'Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slaves' means that especially should they call to mind that state which was theirs when they were delivered from spiritual captivity by the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'remember' as that they should call to mind; from the meaning of 'day' as state, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, 5672, 5962, 7680; from the meaning of 'coming out' as being delivered, for the exodus of the children of Israel means the deliverance by the Lord of those belonging to the spiritual Church, regarding which deliverance see 6854, 6914, 7091 (end), 7828, 7932, 8018; and from the meaning of 'Egypt' and 'the house of slaves' as spiritual captivity. For 'Pharaoh' and 'the Egyptians' mean those in the next life who molested spiritual people by means of falsities, 7097, 7107, 7110, 7126, 7142, 7220, 7228, 7317, and therefore 'the land of Egypt' means molestation, 7278. Molestation by means of falsities is nothing else than spiritual captivity, for when people suffer molestation they are held captive so to speak in falsities from which they constantly strive to be delivered. This also explains why they are called in the Word 'the bound in the pit', 6854. That spiritual captivity is what is also meant by 'the house of slaves (or servants)'. 'Slavery' (or service) means being under attack from falsities, which is molestation, see 7120, 7129.