8866. 'Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves' means deliverance by Him from hell. This is clear from the meaning of 'bringing out' as deliverance; from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as molestations by those from hell, dealt with in 7240, 7278; and from the meaning of 'the house of slaves' as spiritual captivity, dealt with in 8049. The reason why 'the house of slaves' means spiritual captivity and also hell is that being held captive by those in hell and being led by them is slavery, whereas being led by the Lord is freedom, 892, 905, 2870-2875, 2882, 2884, 2892, 2893, 6205, 8209. The fact that those belonging to the spiritual Church, who are represented by the children of Israel, were delivered from hell by the Lord, through His coming into the world and making Divine the Human within Himself, see 6854, 6914, 7035, 7828, 7932, 8018, 8321.

2882. The main reason why a person believes that he has no freedom is his awareness that he, of himself, is incapable of doing what is good and thinking what is true. But let him not also believe that anyone ever has or has had of himself any freedom to think what is true and to do what is good. Not even those people had that freedom of themselves who, because they were utterly blameless, were called the image and likeness of God. But all freedom to think the truth of faith and to do a good deed of charity flows in from the Lord. The Lord is Good itself and Truth itself, and consequently their fountainhead. All angels possess that freedom and indeed the perception itself that all that has been said here is so. Inmost angels perceive how much comes from the Lord and how much from themselves, but that insofar as it comes from the Lord they know happiness and insofar as it comes from themselves they do not.