2543. 'The men were very much afraid' means until they should become averse. This is clear from the meaning here of 'being afraid' and from the meaning of 'men'. As with every emotion, being afraid or fear includes many things within it, even though it looks to be simple and without parts. That is to say, this fear includes loss of life, or reputation, or position, or gain in worldly things, but also loss of good and truth, and so of life, in heavenly things. And because it includes these, it also includes aversion to those things which endeavour to destroy them; and this is all the more the case when an affection itself for what is good and true exists with a person. Such aversion is the opposite of the affection and therefore 'being afraid' here means feeling aversion. The greatness of the Lord's aversion is clear from the strong feeling with which things are stated in the next verse, a strong feeling that doctrine should not be debased by anything of a rational or factual kind. For 'men' means rational concepts and factual knowledge, that is, everything that belongs to the understanding part of the mind, as has been shown in 158, 265, 749, 915, 1007.

To “dwell” somewhere, then, is significant – it’s much more than just visiting – but is less permanent than living there. And indeed, to dwell somewhere in the Bible represents entering that spiritual state and engaging it, but not necessary permanently. A “dwelling,” meanwhile, represents the various loves that inspire the person who inhabits it, from the most evil – “those dwelling in the shadow of death” in Isaiah 9, for example – to the exalted state of the tabernacle itself, which was built as a dwelling-place for the Lord and represents heaven in all its details. Many people were nomadic in Biblical times, especially the times of the Old Testament, and lived in tents that could be struck, moved and raised quickly. Others, of course, lived in houses, generally made of stone and wood and quite permanent. In between the two were larger, more elaborate tent-style structures called tabernacles or dwellings; the tabernacle Moses built for the Ark of the Covenant is on this model.