66. It is obvious that this vision is predicting future states of the church, since it says that the goat took the daily offerings away from the Leader of the Host, that it cast down the dwelling place of his sanctuary, and that it cast truth to the ground. It also says that a holy one said, “How long will this vision last concerning the daily offerings and this destructive sinning, the trampling of the holy place and the host?” and that this would continue until the evening and the morning: then the holy place will be set right. Evening serves to mean the end of a church when there must be a new one.

The kings of Media and Persia later in this chapter [Daniel 8:20] mean much the same as the ram, and the king of Greece means much the same as the goat, because in the Word the names of realms, nations, and peoples, as well as those of persons and places, mean matters of heaven and the church.

5. 1. What the spiritual meaning is. The spiritual meaning is not the meaning that shines forth from the Word's literal meaning when we study and interpret the Word in order to confirm some dogma of the church. That meaning is the literal meaning of the Word.

We cannot see the spiritual meaning in the literal meaning; it is within the literal meaning the same way the soul is within the body, thought is within the eyes, or a feeling is within a facial expression - the two act together as cause and effect. Arcana Coelestia 1884, [1885,]

It is primarily this meaning that makes the Word spiritual not only for us but for angels as well; so by means of this meaning the Word is in communication with the heavens.