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.

7680. 'The whole of that day and the whole of that night' means all the perception, both that which was darkened and that which was not darkened, of the molesting ones - that is to say, it was all destroyed. This is clear from the meaning of 'day' as a state of undarkened perception; and from the meaning of 'night' as a state of darkened perception. For periods of the day - morning, midday, evening, and night - correspond to degrees of enlightenment, that is, of intelligence and wisdom, 5672, 6110, and so to degrees of perception. In general day and night are called degrees of perception, not of enlightenment, because the evil who molest have no enlightenment, though they may still have perception. They have it for as long as there remains with them any knowledge at all of truth and goodness which they had acquired from the Church in which they had lived. For through truth and goodness they have contact with those who are in heaven. But once they have been deprived of such knowledge, as happens when they have undergone vastation, they no longer have any perception. Those in hell are, it is true, able to justify their evils, and also their falsities; but this is not perception. Perception is seeing that truth is truth and good is good, and also that evil is evil and falsity is falsity. But it is not perception when people see truth as falsity, or good as evil, and conversely see evil as good or falsity as truth. Those who do this have delusion instead of perception. That delusion takes on the appearance of perception, in that people such as they know how to justify falsities and evils by means of the kinds of ideas that suggest themselves to the senses and lend support to their evil longings.