5205. 'And stood by the [other] cows on the bank of the river' means at the boundaries where the truths were present. This is clear from the meaning of 'standing by, on the bank of the river' as at the boundaries, 'the river' meaning a boundary, see 5196, 5197; and from the meaning of 'the cows' as the truths belonging to the natural, dealt with above in 5198. The implications of this - of falsities standing at the boundaries where truths were - will be evident from what appears further on, in particular at the point where the meaning in the internal sense of the seven years of famine in the land of Egypt comes up for explanation, those seven years being foretold and meant by the seven cows that were bad in appearance and thin-fleshed, and also by the seven heads of grain that were thin and scorched by an east wind.