9673. 'With cherubs' means watchfulness, guarding against the intermingling of the two - of spiritual good and celestial good, and so of the middle heaven and the inmost heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'cherubs' as watchfulness and providence, guarding against access to the Lord except through good and guarding against any harm being done to the good from the Lord which is present in heaven and with a person, dealt with in 9509. The reason why guarding against the intermingling of spiritual good and celestial good, and so of those two heavens, is also meant is that if they did become intermingled they would both suffer harm, harm so serious that those actual heavens would be destroyed, as may be recognized from the difference between the two kinds of good, and so between the two heavens, spoken about in the places referred to above in 9670. For this reason there are intermediate angelic communities, among whom celestial-spiritual good exists and spiritual-celestial good; and through these communities the two heavens are linked together, 9670, 9671. Even with these communities the two forms of good have not been joined together, but exist distinct and separate from each other. From all this it is evident that those communities are guards, protecting both kinds of good from becoming intermingled, and therefore also that this watchfulness and providence which are the Lord's are meant by 'cherubs'.

6500. 'And wept on him' means sorrow. This is clear without explanation. The sorrow meant in the internal sense here by 'weeping' is not because of death, as the external sense implies, but sorrow because the good of the spiritual Church is not able to be raised above the natural. For the Lord, who is flowing in constantly by way of the internal, wishes to make that good more perfect and draw it closer to Himself; but in spite of this that good cannot be raised to the prime degree of good, which is that of the celestial Church, 3833. This is because the member of sorrow the spiritual Church dwells in obscurity, compared with one who belongs to the celestial Church. He engages in reasoning about truths to establish whether they are truths; or he goes about substantiating what is called doctrine, an activity he engages in without any perception of whether what he substantiates is true or not. And once he has substantiated something for himself he fully believes it to be true, even though it may be false. For nothing is incapable of being substantiated, since that kind of activity is the work of cleverness, not of intelligence, let alone wisdom. Falsity can be substantiated more readily than truth, because it encourages evil desires and accords with the illusions of the senses. Since the member of the spiritual Church is like this he cannot possibly be raised above the natural. This then is the reason for the sorrow meant by 'Joseph wept on him'.