The Lord is life itself. We are recipients of life. We give life unique forms because of our unique shapes as receptacles, and through free will we can choose how fully we will receive life. But we don't have life of our own. It follows from this that the more we turn toward the Lord and receive life, the more alive we will be; and the more we turn away the more dead we will be. It also follows that believing life is our own – with all the loves, the thoughts and the power that entails – is actually the antithesis of life.

This is the state of those in the deepest hells, who reject everything of the Lord, even His existence, and claim all life as their own. They are, in fact, only alive because the Lord forces life on them in the amount necessary to sustain existence.

This is, in a sense, what is represented by the rib – which is human, and is alive, but only in the most limited way. When the people of the Most Ancient Church (Adam) wanted to lead themselves and sense life as their own, the Lord had to use that most dead aspect of them to grant their wish. He had to use that bone, which represents our most hellish potential, what we would be if we were to reject the Lord completely.

But then the Lord did something miraculous. He turned that bone into living flesh, into a new person: the woman Eve. This represents that the Lord built that most dead, most hellish aspect of us up into something which felt life as its own, but could acknowledge that life actually came from the Lord, and could thus again be a recipient of life. It wasn't quite as pure as before; people could no longer commune directly with the Lord. But they had what they wanted instead: a sense of self.

The Writings call this – both the rib and the woman – by the Latin word proprium, essentially meaning "as of self." The rib represents the proprium on its own, which is hellish. The woman represents the proprium given life by the Lord.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 151, 152, 153, 154, 155)

9574. 'A talent of pure gold shall [be used to] make it, together with all these vessels' means celestial good from which spiritual good together with its factual knowledge springs. This is clear from the meaning of 'a talent of pure gold' as one good from which all things spring, for 'a talent' means one, and 'gold' good, 9549; and 'vessels', which too must consist of the same good, means factual knowledge, 9557, 9559, 9560, 9563, 9564. For the meaning of 'vessels' in general as truths and factual knowledge, see 3068, 3079, 9394, 9544. Since good must be the all in everything that is brought forth and derived, so that celestial good must be in spiritual forms of good, and from these in factual knowledge, 9568, it therefore says that the lampstand shall be made from pure and solid gold, 9549, 9550; that the shaft, branches, cups, pomegranates, and flowers shall be of [one piece with] it, 9551-9554; and at this point that it shall be made, together with all its vessels, from a talent of pure gold.