6049. 'And you are to say, Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our boyhoods and right up to now' means that the truths which lead to good have been present from the beginning and are present still. This is clear from the meaning of 'keepers of livestock' as truths that lead to good, dealt with in 6016, 6045; and from the meaning of 'from our boyhoods and right up to now' as from the beginning and remaining so still. Regarding the meaning of 'livestock' as truths that lead to good, it should be recognized that livestock includes all draught animals, large and small - both those in the flock and those in the herd, and in addition camels, horses, mules, and asses. The latter mean things connected with truths, whereas the former - members of the herd and of the flock - mean things connected with good. This then is why all these draught-animals in general, which are 'livestock', mean truths that lead to good. In the original language 'livestock' is derived from a word which also means acquisition, and 'acquisition' in the spiritual sense also means truth that leads to good, for the reason that good is acquired by means of truth. But the smaller animals mean interior forms of good since they are members of the flock, such as lambs, sheep, kids, she-goats, and rams.

[2] 'Livestock' also means truths that lead to good in other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

Then He will give rain for your seed with which you will sow the land, and bread the produce [of the land]; and there will be fatness and wealthiness. On that day they will feed your livestock in a broad grassland. Isaiah 30:23.

'Feeding' stands for receiving instruction in truths and forms of good, 5201, while 'a broad grassland' stands for the doctrine of truth, the expression 'broad' being used because 'breadth' means truth, 3433, 3434, 4482. From this it is evident that 'livestock' means truths that lead to good. In Ezekiel,

To bring back your hand upon the inhabited waste places and upon the people that were gathered out of the nations, that are working with livestock and a possession - dwellers upon the navel of the earth. Ezekiel 38:11-12.

'Livestock' in a similar way stands for truths leading to good, 'a possession 'for good.