25. If, then, the prophecies respecting Judea and Jerusalem, and Israel and Judah and Jacob, inasmuch as we do not take them in the fleshly sense, suggest some such mysteries as the foregoing, it should follow that the prophecies concerning Egypt and the Egyptians, Babylon and the Babylonians, Tyre and the Tyriaus, Sidon and the Sidonians, or any other nations, are not prophecies merely of the corporeal Egyptians, Babylonians, Tyrians, and Sidonians. For if there are "spiritual" Israelites, it follows that there are "spiritual" Egyptians and Babylonians. What the Prophet Ezekiel says cannot at all be made to |26 suit Pharaoh, King of Egypt, a past or future human ruler of the country, as will be evident to close observers. Similarly, what is said about the ruler of Tyre cannot be understood of some future human ruler of Tyre. And the many passages relating to Nabuchadnosor, particularly in Isaiah, how can we possibly take them to refer to the man of that name? For the man Nabuchadnosor did not fall from heaven, nor was he Lucifer, nor did he rise early on the earth. And the sayings in Ezekiel concerning Egypt, to the effect that it would be desolate for forty years, so that the foot of man should not be found there, and that war should be so fiercely waged at some time or other that throughout the whole land blood should reach to the knees, what sensible person will understand them of Egypt that borders on the Ethiopians with their sunburnt bodies?