10458. 'And it happened, as he came near the camp' means near to hell, in which that nation was then. This is clear from the meaning of 'the camp of the children of Israel' as heaven and the Church, dealt with in 4236, 10038, so that when they engaged in idolatrous worship, venerating the calf instead of Jehovah, their camp means hell. For what is representative of heaven and the Church is turned into that which is representative of hell when the people turned from the worship of God to worship of the devil, which worship of the calf was. 'The camp' has a similar meaning in Amos,

I have sent the pestilence upon you in the way of Egypt, I have killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses ¹ , to such an extent that I have caused the stench of your camp to come up also into your nose. Amos 4:10.

This refers to the vastation of truth; and when truth has been laid waste 'the camp' means hell. The fact that it refers to the vastation of truth is evident from the specific details of the verse when looked at in the internal sense. 'The pestilence' means vastation, 7102, 7505; 'the way' means truth, and in the contrary sense falsity, 10422; 'Egypt' that which is external, and also hell, see in the places referred to in 10437; 'the sword' falsity engaged in conflict against truths, 2799, 4499, 6353, 7102, 8294; 'young men' the Church's truths, 7668; 'being killed' being destroyed spiritually, 6767, 8902; 'captivity' deprivation of truth, 7990; 'horses' an enlightened power of understanding, 2760-2762, 3217, 5321, 6125, 6534; and 'stench' that which is abominable, emanating from hell, 7161. From all this it is evident that in the internal sense 'the camp' means hell. Hell is also meant in the historical narratives of the Word by the camp of enemies opposed to Jerusalem, and in general of those opposed to the children of Israel.

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6337. 'And I will show you what will happen to you at the end of days' means the nature of the Church's state within the order in which they were arranged at that time. This is clear from the meaning of 'showing what will happen' as communicating and foretelling; and from the meaning of 'the end of days' as the final phase of the state in which they exist together - 'days' being states, 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, and 'the end' the final phase, so that 'the end of days' is the final phase of a state, that is to say, of the state in which truths and forms of good in general exist together when arranged in their proper order. The reason why it is the Church's state which is meant is that the truths and forms of good represented by 'Jacob and his sons' are what constitute the Church, on account of which 'Jacob' represents the Church, 4286, 4439, 4514, 4520, 4680, 4772, 5536, 5540, and so also 'his sons', 5403, 5419, 5427, 5458, 5512. And the reason why the nature of that state is meant is that the way the Church's truths and forms of good are represented depends on the order in which Jacob's sons or the tribes are mentioned in the Word, see 3862, 3926, 3939. For its nature is different if Reuben's name comes first from what it is if Judah's comes first. When Reuben is first the nature of the state is such that it starts with faith; but when Judah is first it is such that it starts with love; and the nature of it is different again when it starts with something other than faith or love. For variation in the nature of the state is also indicated by the order in which the rest are named after those two.

[2] The variations that are produced in this way are incalculable, indeed infinite, especially so when the truths and forms of good in general that are meant by 'the twelve tribes' also take on specific variations, countless ones for each - for then each truth and form of good in general assumes a different appearance - and even more especially so when those specific truths or forms of good take on countless individual variations, and so on. The infinite variations produced in this way may be illustrated by very many things that exist in the natural world. From all this one may now see that the twelve tribes have a different meaning when their names occur in the Word in one order from when they do so in another. Thus in this chapter they carry a meaning different from that seen elsewhere.