7642. For if thou refuse to let my people go. That this signifies if they did not leave them, is evident from the signification of “to let go,” as being to leave (as frequently above); thus “refusing to let go” denotes not to be willing to leave.

6614. It has been shown by living experience how angelic ideas flow into the ideas of spirits who are beneath, and therefore in grosser ideas. An abundance of ideas from the angelic heaven was shown as a bright cloud divided into little masses; each little mass, which consisted of countless ideas, produced in a spirit one simple idea; and it was afterward shown that thousands and thousands of things were in it, which were also represented by a cloud before the eyes of spirits. I afterward spoke of these things with the spirits, showing that they may be illustrated by the objects of sight; for an object which appears simple, when seen through a magnifying glass, immediately presents to the sight a thousand things not before visible; as in the case of animalcules which appear as one obscure object, but when viewed in a microscope not only become many, but each is seen in its form; and if subjected to still higher power of sight, there are seen organs, members, viscera, and also vessels and fibers. Such also is the case with the ideas of thought, thousands and thousands of things being in each of them, although the many ideas together of which the thought is composed, appear only as a simple thing. Nevertheless there are more things in the ideas of thought of one person than in the ideas of another, the abundance of ideas in the thought being according to the extension into societies.