10298. 'And you shall make this an incense' means worship consisting of them. This is clear from the meaning of 'incense' as acts of thanksgiving, adoration, prayer, and like forms of worship, which are emanations from the heart passing into thought and speech, dealt with in 9475. By 'the smoke of the incense' a raising up is meant, 10177, 10198, and by 'a sweet odour' a perception and reception that are pleasing, in the places referred to in 10292.

[2] Since the worship of God, meant by 'sweet-smelling incense', is described here, and the spices from which that incense was made mean different kinds of truth in their proper order, what that worship is like must be stated briefly here. But it is impossible to reveal this arcanum without knowledge of the nature of the human being. The human being is a human being not by virtue of his face, nor indeed by virtue of his speech, but by virtue of his understanding and will. The character of understanding and will make a human being what he is. It is well known that at birth nothing constituting his understanding nor anything composing his will exists, and that from earliest childhood his understanding and his will are being formed gradually. In this way he is made a human being, and the kind of human being he becomes is determined by the character of those two powers of mind that have been formed in him. The understanding is formed by means of truths and the will by means of forms of good, so much so that his understanding is nothing other than a mass of ideas such as are related to truths, and his will nothing other than an affection for things such as are called good. From this it follows that nothing else than the truth and the good from which both his powers of mind have been formed constitute the human being.

[3] All the individual parts of his body correspond to them, as may be recognized from the consideration that the body acts instantaneously in response to what the understanding thinks and the will intends. For his mouth speaks in conformity with his thoughts, his face alters in conformity with his affections, and his body makes movements in conformity with the signals received from both. From this it is evident that the character of a person's understanding and will, thus what he is like in respect of truths and forms of good there, make him wholly and completely what he is. For as has been stated, truths constitute the understanding part of his mind and forms of good the will part, or what amounts to the same thing, his truth and his good constitute the human being.

[4] This is plainly apparent in the case of spirits. They are nothing other than their own truths and forms of good, which they took to themselves when they were people living in the world. But they are still human forms, and therefore the character of the truths and forms of good that are theirs shines from their faces; it is also revealed in their tone of voice and the feeling in what they say, in their gestures, and most of all in the words they use when they speak. For the words composing their speech are not like those used by people in the world but are in complete harmony with the truths and forms of good that reside with them, in such complete harmony that they flow naturally from them. This kind of speech is what spirits and angels use when they talk to one another. As to his spirit a person uses something similar while living in the world, though he is unaware of doing so then. For his thought consists of ideas of this type, as has also been observed by certain learned people who have termed those ideas immaterial and intellectual. Those ideas become words after death, when the person becomes a spirit. From all this it is again evident that nothing else than his truth and his good constitute the human being. Consequently after death he continues to be the kind of person that his truth and good have made him. The words 'the kind that his truth and good have made him' should be taken to mean also the kind that his falsity and evil have made him; for people who are bad call falsity truth, and evil they call good.

[5] This arcanum is what people must be fully aware of if they are to have any knowledge of what the worship of God is like. But in addition to this, another needs to be known, namely that the entire person is present within every idea emanating from the person's will. This also follows from the first, for what a person thinks springs from the truth and what he wills from the good that constitute him. This may be seen to be so from the following experience, that when angels perceive one idea a person has, or one idea a spirit has, they know instantly the character of that person or this spirit.

[6] These things have been stated in order that people may know what the worship of God, meant by the incense consisting of the spices, is like, namely that the entire person is present within every single part of his worship, because the truth and good constituting him are present within it. This is the reason why the four spices are mentioned, by which all the levels of truth in their entirety are meant. From this it also follows that it amounts to the same thing whether you say that the worship of God consists of these levels of truth and good or you say that the person consists of them; for as has been stated, the entire person is present within all the particular ideas which compose his thought and constitute his worship.

5276. 'A great abundance of corn in all the land of Egypt' means the multiplication of truth in both parts of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'an abundance of corn' as a multiplication of truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as both parts of the natural. For knowledge is meant by 'Egypt', see 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, 4749, 4964, 4966; and since knowledge is meant by that land, so also is the natural meant by it, for the reason that as the expression 'factual knowledge' is used to describe what is stored in the natural, 'the land of Egypt' therefore means the natural mind in which factual knowledge is stored. This being so, 'all the land of Egypt' means both parts of the natural - the interior natural and the exterior natural, regarding which, see 5118, 5126. The reason 'an abundance of corn' means a multiplication of truth is that the expression describes the opposite of 'famine', by which an absence of truth is meant. The word used in the original language to express an abundance of corn - an antonym to 'famine' - means in the internal sense a vast wealth and sufficiency of religious knowledge; for 'famine' means an absence of it. Religious knowledge consists in nothing else than the truths present in a person's natural man which have not yet been made his own by him. The multiplication of such truths is what is meant here. Religious knowledge does not come to be truths residing with a person until that knowledge finds acceptance in his understanding, which happens when he firmly embraces it; and what are then truths residing with him are not made his own until he lives in conformity with them. For nothing is made a person's own other than that which is made part of his life; thus because those truths form his life, his true self is invested in them.