6677. 'And if it is a daughter, let her live' means that they were not to destroy it if it was a form of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a daughter' as a form of good, dealt with in 489, 491, 2362; and from the meaning of '[allowing] to live' as that it should not be destroyed. The reason why the king of Egypt said that a son should be killed but not a daughter is evident from the internal sense, which is that they could attempt to destroy truth but not good. For when those from hell molest anyone they are allowed to set upon truths but not upon forms of good, the reason being that truths are what can be made to suffer attack, not forms of good. The latter are protected by the Lord, and when those from hell do try to set upon forms of good they are cast far down into hell. They cannot stand the presence of good, since the Lord is present in every form of good. This explains why the angels, being governed by good, have so much power and control over hellish spirits that just one of them can subdue thousands of those from hell. It should be recognized that good holds life within it, for good springs from love, and love is the life in a person. If evil that springs from selfish and worldly love and seems to be good to those governed by evil attacks good which springs from heavenly love, the life of the one fights against the life of the other. And since the life belonging to the good that comes with heavenly love originates in the Divine, the life belonging to selfish and worldly love starts to be annihilated if it comes into conflict with that life from the Divine. For it is stifled and so those involved suffer torment like those in the threes of death. Because of this they hurl themselves into hell, where they recover the life that is theirs, see 3938, 4225, 4226, 5057, 5058. This is another reason why evil genii and spirits are unable to attack good and so do not dare to destroy it. It is different with truth. This has no life within it, other than what it receives from good, that is, from the Lord through good.