8773. 'And Moses came and called the elders of the people' means the choice of those who ranked first in the understanding of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling to oneself' as choosing; and from the meaning of 'the elders of the people' as those who rank first in the understanding of truth, or - in the sense completely separate from actual persons - leading truths, dealt with in 6524, 6525, 6890, 8578, 8585. The implications of all this are as follows: People governed by the kind of good that is the subject in the present chapter - that is, good that has not as yet received truths to give it form - are reformed by the Lord first by means of leading truths, that is, by general truths, which contain and are the source of all other truths. Leading truths are these: God is one; the Lord was born a human being in order that the human race might be saved; heaven exists, and hell; those who have led a good life enter heaven, and those who have led a bad one enter hell; love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour are the commandments on which all others hang; and only through faith can this love exist. These and others like them are the leading truths which the Lord first instills into the good present with a person who is being regenerated. When these truths have been instilled into the good and become the truths of good, all other truths are instilled. They are arranged into order within and beneath those general or leading truths, and are in keeping with the form that heaven takes. Thus by degrees they enable the life of heaven to exist in that person, who is then so to speak a miniature heaven; that is, they enable all that composes his understanding and that constitutes his will to be linked to the forms of good and the truths residing with angels, and so to the angels themselves.

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.