7556. 'And now send, assemble your livestock' means that the truth of good should be gathered. This is clear from the meaning of 'assembling' as gathering; and from the meaning of 'livestock' as the good of truth, and also the truth of good, dealt with in 6016, 6045. What the truth of good and the good of truth are, see 2063, 3295, 3332, 3669, 3688, 3882, 4337, 4353, 4390, 5526, 5733. The subject in this and the next two verses is the goodness and truth which the Lord places in safe keeping even within the evil. For goodness and truth which have not been linked to evils and falsities are not laid waste but are stored away interiorly by the Lord and at a later time brought out for use. The goodness and truth placed in safe keeping within a person by the Lord are meant in the Word by 'the remnant', regarding which, see 468, 530, 560, 561, 576, 661, 798, 1738, 1906, 2284, 5135, 5342, 5344, 5897-5899, 6156.

798. 'From fifteen cubits upwards the waters prevailed and covered the mountains' means that no trace of charity remained; and 'fifteen' means things so few as to be scarcely any at all. This becomes clear from the meaning of the number 'five', dealt with in Chapter 6:15. There it was shown that in the style of the Word, that is, in the internal sense, 'five' means those that are few. And since the number fifteen is the sum of five, which means few, and of ten, which means remnants, as has been shown at 6:3, this number has regard to remnants, which with those people were hardly anything at all. For so great were the persuasions of falsity that they did away with everything good. With regard to the remnants residing with man, the false assumptions, as stated already, and still more the persuasions of falsity, were of such a nature with the people before the Flood that they shut in and shut away remnants so completely that they could not be brought out. And if they had been brought out they would have been falsified in an instant. Indeed the life inherent in persuasions is such that it not only rejects everything true and soaks up everything false, but also perverts any truth that goes near it.