5402. 'That there was corn in Egypt' means the intention to acquire truths to itself through factual knowledge, which is 'Egypt'. This is clear from the meaning of 'corn' as the truths known to the Church, or the truths of faith - 'an abundance of corn' being a multiplication of truth, see 5276, 5280, 5292; and from the meaning of 'Egypt' as factual knowledge, dealt with in 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, and, in the genuine sense, facts known to the Church, see 4749, 4964, 4966. As is evident from the words that come immediately after them, the ones used here imply an intention to acquire these truths to itself. The expression 'facts known to the Church', which 'Egypt' stands for here, is used to mean all the cognitions of truth and good before they become linked to the interior man, that is, through the interior man to heaven, and thus through heaven to the Lord. The teachings of the Church and its religious observances, in addition to its cognitions about why and how these represent spiritual realities and the like, all exist as nothing more than known facts until a person sees from the Word whether they are truths, and having done so makes them his own.

[2] There are two ways of acquiring the truths of faith, one way being through religious teaching, the other through the Word. When religious teaching alone is the way by which a person acquires them, he pins his faith on those who have deduced such truths from the Word, and assures himself that they are indeed truths because others have said that they are. Thus he does not believe those truths on account of any faith of his own but on account of that possessed by others. When however he gathers those truths for himself from the Word and assures himself for that reason that they are truths, he believes them on account of their Divine origin and so on account of a faith received from the Divine. Initially everyone within the Church acquires the truths that constitute faith from religious teaching; indeed this is how he ought to acquire them because he is not as yet equipped with judgement of his own that will enable him to see those truths from the Word. At this time those truths are for him no different from factual knowledge. But once he does possess the judgement to see them on his own, and if he does not consult the Word to the end that he may see from there whether they are indeed truths, they remain with him as factual knowledge. If however he does consult the Word with an affection for and an intention to know truths, and having found them there acquires them from their own true source, he receives the truths of faith from the Divine and makes them his own. These and other matters like them are what the internal sense is dealing with here; for 'Egypt' is that factual knowledge, while 'Joseph' is truth received from the Divine and so truth obtained from the Word.

5276. 'A great abundance of corn in all the land of Egypt' means the multiplication of truth in both parts of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'an abundance of corn' as a multiplication of truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as both parts of the natural. For knowledge is meant by 'Egypt', see 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, 4749, 4964, 4966; and since knowledge is meant by that land, so also is the natural meant by it, for the reason that as the expression 'factual knowledge' is used to describe what is stored in the natural, 'the land of Egypt' therefore means the natural mind in which factual knowledge is stored. This being so, 'all the land of Egypt' means both parts of the natural - the interior natural and the exterior natural, regarding which, see 5118, 5126. The reason 'an abundance of corn' means a multiplication of truth is that the expression describes the opposite of 'famine', by which an absence of truth is meant. The word used in the original language to express an abundance of corn - an antonym to 'famine' - means in the internal sense a vast wealth and sufficiency of religious knowledge; for 'famine' means an absence of it. Religious knowledge consists in nothing else than the truths present in a person's natural man which have not yet been made his own by him. The multiplication of such truths is what is meant here. Religious knowledge does not come to be truths residing with a person until that knowledge finds acceptance in his understanding, which happens when he firmly embraces it; and what are then truths residing with him are not made his own until he lives in conformity with them. For nothing is made a person's own other than that which is made part of his life; thus because those truths form his life, his true self is invested in them.