9874. 'Enclosed in gold shall they be in their settings' means that all of them in general and each in particular must emanate from the good belonging to the love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'gold' as the good of love, dealt with in 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917, 8932, 9490, 9510; and from the meaning of 'being enclosed in it in their settings' as emanating from that good. For every single stone was surrounded by and so enclosed in gold, and since 'gold' means the good of love what is enclosed means that which exists or emanates from that good. The like is meant in verse 11 of the present chapter by the sockets of gold which surrounded the two shoham stones placed on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod.

[2] The implications of all this are that the breastplate and its twelve stones represented every good and truth in the heavens and so represented all heaven, as shown above. Moreover not only the heavens but also every community in the heavens, indeed each angel within a community, is surrounded by a Divine sphere, which consists of Divine Good and Truth emanating from the Lord, see where this is dealt with in 9490-9492, 9498, 9499, 9534. And since the good and truth of this sphere is received by the angels, so also every single thing present with them emanates from there; for each angel is heaven in the smallest form it takes. The actual good emanating from the Lord is what the gold around the stones and enclosing them represents.

[3] The truth that this good is the good of love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord may be recognized from the consideration that all good belongs to love, for what a person loves he calls good and also feels to be such. From this it is evident that heavenly good is the good of love to the Lord, for this love is what joins angel and man to the Lord; through this love they are brought to Him and enjoy all the good of heaven. It is well known in the Church that this good comes from the Lord, for the teaching of the Church is that all good originates in God and none at all in oneself. From this it is evident that the good of love shown to the Lord must come from the Lord, and that good from any other source is not good.

9498. 'And you shall put the poles into the rings' means the power of the Divine sphere. This is clear from the meaning of 'the poles' as power, dealt with just above in 9496; and from the meaning of 'the rings' as Divine Truth joined to Divine Good, which lie in every direction round about, also dealt with above, in 9493, thus the Divine sphere which surrounds and embraces heaven as a whole, and every heavenly community and actual angel specifically, in accord with what has been shown already in 9490, 9492. For Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good should not be envisaged as speech and its passage into an ear but rather as a sphere emanating from the sun, which gradually diminishes in heat and brightness as it gets further away from the sun, and eventually becomes so moderated that it is accommodated to angels' ability to receive it. Within this sphere, but far away from the sun on account of its heat and brightness, lies the angelic heaven. That sphere also extends outside heaven, right on into hell; those there however do not receive it in the right way but turn it into the opposite. From this it becomes clear what should be understood by the Divine sphere which embraces and contains heaven, namely Divine Truth emanating in that manner from the Lord's Divine Good, consequently Divine Truth joined to Divine Good, which lies in every direction round about heaven and round about those who are in heaven. The heat emanating from the Lord as the Sun there is the Divine Good of His Divine Love, accommodated to the ability of the angels in heaven to receive it; and the light emanating from the Lord as the Sun is the Divine Truth of His Divine Good. Both that heat and light however are called the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord.