1464. 'For the famine in the land was serious' means a great lack in His External Man. This is clear from the meaning of 'famine' as presented above in this verse. The arcana contained here are more than can be enumerated briefly. The Lord's ability to learn was superior to that of any other person, but because He was to receive instruction in celestial things before doing so in spiritual things, unlike others, reference is made to this point here. A further reason for such a reference is that there was hereditary evil from the mother in His External Man which He was to fight against and to overcome. And there are countless other considerations besides these.

1376. POSITION AND PLACE, AND ALSO DISTANCE AND TIME IN THE NEXT LIFE - continued

I have spoken frequently to spirits about the idea that place and distance with them are not anything real but only appear to be so, being nothing other than their states of thought and affection, which vary in the way place and distance do and which visually present themselves as such in the world of spirits. This is not so much the case with angels in heaven. They have no idea of place or of time, but only of states. Spirits however who cling to bodily and earthly ideas do not comprehend this because they imagine that everything really is exactly as they behold it. Such spirits can scarcely be led to believe otherwise than that they are living in the body, and refuse to be convinced that they are spirits. Thus they can scarcely be led to believe that any appearances or illusions are possible, desiring to live in illusions, and so they shut themselves off from grasping and acknowledging truths and goods, which are very far from being illusions. They have been shown time and again that change of place is merely an appearance, and also an illusion of the senses. In fact there are in the next life two kinds of changes of place. The first is that mentioned already, in which every spirit and angel in the Grand Man remains all the time in his own position; this is an appearance. The second is that in which spirits appear in a place when in fact they are not there at all; this is an illusion.