5251. 'And Pharaoh said to Joseph' means a perception expressed by the natural but belonging to the celestial of the spiritual. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' in the historical narratives of the Word as perceiving, often dealt with already; from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the natural, dealt with in 5079, 5080, 5095, 5160; and from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial of the spiritual, dealt with in 4286, 4592, 4594, 4963, 5086, 5087, 5106, 5249. The reason why a perception expressed by the natural but belonging to the celestial of the spiritual is meant is that the Lord is represented by both 'Joseph' and 'Pharaoh'. 'Joseph' represents His celestial of the spiritual and 'Pharaoh' His natural, and therefore 'Pharaoh said to Joseph' means a perception which the Lord had, which originated in the celestial of the spiritual and was present in the natural. But nothing intelligible can be stated regarding the identity and essential nature of that perception unless some idea has been formed first of what spiritual perception and the celestial of the spiritual are, as well as some idea about the essential nature of the natural being distinct and separate from that of the spiritual. Some reference has indeed been made previously to these matters; but one needs to be reminded of them.

3356. The reason 'a quake' means an alteration of state is that a quake occurs within the space-time continuum, and in the next life there is no concept of space and time, but instead of these the concept of state. In the next life it does indeed appear as though all things exist within space and follow one another in a time-sequence, but in themselves they are alterations of state, for space and time there are the products of these. This is very well known to all spirits, even evil ones, who by means of alterations of state effected in others cause them to appear somewhere other than where they in fact are. Man too is able to know of this from the fact that insofar as his state is one of affection and therefore of joy, or insofar as it is one of thought and therefore of withdrawal from the body, he is outside time. For while such a state lasts, many hours seem to him to be as scarcely one hour. The reason for this is that states belong to his internal man, which is his spirit, to which states intervals of space and periods of time in the external man correspond. 'A quake' therefore, being one of the consecutive events that occur within space and time, in the internal sense means an alteration of state.