You know the Ten Commandments. How does the first one begin? The Lord here tells Israel that He has brought them out of "the house of bondage." The Ten Commandments were given to Moses and through him to the children of Israel some time after the events took place that are told in our present chapter, and "the house of bondage" that he refers to is the land of bitter slavery which is described in this chapter, and also in Exod. 1. Read especially Exod. 1, verses 11 to 14. What a very miserable and sad time the Israelites must have had! This their bondage or slavery is often spoken of in the Word, and it is therefore well to read about it carefully.

The reason why it is spoken of so frequently in the Word is, that it represented, in the internal sense, a still worse kind of bondage or slavery, one that existed in the spiritual world, and which millions upon millions of people suffered for centuries, and until the Lord came into the world, and delivered them. The Lord came into the world for this very purpose, and His delivering them is called "Redemption." The internal sense of the Word tells us much about the spiritual slavery of human beings, and of the manner in which the Lord delivered them or set them free.

To tell you the story in a few words, it is this:

You have learned what death is, and that by death people go into the other or spiritual world. Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell. But many good people are not yet quite ready to go to heaven as soon as they have entered the other world. Perhaps they have some bad habits. Perhaps they have wrong ideas about God because they were brought up from childhood where people did not have the truth, but worshiped idols. So they remain in a place called the World of Spirits (not "the Spiritual World"), which is between heaven and hell, and here they are punished until they get rid of their bad habits, or taught by angels until they see the truth and give up the wrong and false ideas they had. So also there are wicked people, who, when they pass by death from the natural world to the spiritual world, cannot yet enter hell, because they may have some good habits, which they have put on, not because they wish to be good, but so that they may deceive people; or because they have true ideas, which also they learned, not because they love truth but in order to deceive people and get money out of them, or to be honored by them. These wicked people, who are hypocrites, also stay in the World of Spirits, until they are rid or "vastated" of whatever good or truth they may have had. For in heaven, evil and falsity hurt the angels and cannot be tolerated, and in hell, good and truth hurt the devils and are not tolerated. Now, centuries before the Lord came into the world - centuries before Moses' time even - when the Ancient Church had become very bad, the good people were no longer so wise and intelligent that they could see through the deceit of the evil and hypocrites; and in the spiritual world the hypocrites gradually grew in numbers, and began to have power over the good, and prevented their coming into heaven. The hypocrites stayed a long while in the world of spirits, and built great cities for themselves. They even went upon the mountains of the world of spirits near to heaven, and built cities and watchtowers there, and troubled with their disturbing influence even the angels of the lower part of heaven.

You see from this how the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven. Since the evil were so strong, the Lord kept the good who were coming from this world in a special place until the time that He should come to deliver them. This place where they were kept is called the "lower earth," because it is the lower part of the world of spirits, near hell. Do you see how up side down the world of spirits was? The wicked people were near heaven and troubled it, and the good people were near hell. Being near hell, they were of course much troubled by the infernal or hellish people around them. It was just as our story tells it, where the children of Israel were in Egypt, and were troubled by the Egyptians who were round about them.

Do you recognize the picture? Look at it. Here in the story in the Word, we have Canaan (which, as you know, represented heaven) occupied by wicked nations, the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. These nations represented the hypocrites who were in the world of spirits near heaven. While in the land of the Egyptians (who represented hell) were the Israelites who worshiped Jehovah, and who represented the good in the world of spirits who lived in the lower earth.

The people in the spiritual world who lived in the lower earth were troubled not like the Israelites in Egypt, with having to make bricks, but with what these represent, namely falsities. When people are continually teaching others what is false, about God, about Heaven, about how we must live here, and when they try to force them to believe these falsities, when yet the good want to know the truth, it gives the good as much pain and sorrow, as when the Israelites were forced to make bricks, and were beaten and otherwise treated cruelly. When evil spirits so influence good people by telling them horrible falsities about God, as, for instance, that God consists of three persons, that He likes to punish people, that He pays no attention to the goodness of little children but sends them to hell unless He chooses to take them to heaven, and other horrible things like this - and so trouble the good by trying to make them believe that the Bible teaches this- this is called "infestation."

When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, people had the most horrible ideas about God. They made monstrous pictures and images showing what they thought of Him, and they taught that it was right to hate others and kill them. So you see that the world was in a very bad state indeed.

The worst was, that evil-minded people and evil spirits made people believe that all this was taught in the Bible. You can see how this would trouble and pain the good, who would like to think of God as a loving Father, and that we must love others, even our enemies. As you have been told, the internal sense of the story of the "bondage of Egypt" is the story of the good and simple-hearted people who were tormented this way for many, many years in the spiritual world. But as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and at last to the land of Canaan, so the Lord Jesus Christ, while He was in the World, led these good people out of the lower earth, out of the neighborhood of hell, and having cast down the wicked people who had their cities near heaven, gave their places to the good, who were so happy that they sang for joy. They made up a grand heaven, called "The Spiritual Heaven."

But, sad to say, after the Lord had done all this, and had established a new church on earth through the preaching of the Apostles, who told people to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the same thing happened again. After a while people did not repent. Again did the wicked become powerful in the world of spirits, and built great cities, and made what seemed like heaven but was not. Again the good had to be protected by being kept in the lower earth. Again the Lord had to come, although this time He did not come in person on earth, but taught people through Swedenborg. This was His Second Coming. The internal sense of our story in Exodus treats of all this also, and you will find it described in the work entitled, The Last Judgment, and Babylon Destroyed.

Swedenborg tells us how he saw and heard the poor people who lived in spiritual bondage in the lower earth; he describes the great earthquakes and terrible winds by which the cities of the hypocrites were destroyed, and they themselves cast into hell; and how he saw the good taken into heaven, and heard their songs of joy and thanksgiving for their redemption.

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