5606. There are four kinds of people there just as in the world. 1) Those who give their attention to the uses in the Word, and certainly see other things but do not give attention to them. They serve as a plane [for reception]. It is read in this way by heavenly angels. 2) There are those who draw the doctrinal points of the Word from it. Spiritual angels understand the Word in this way. 3) There are those who are delighted only by its holy outward aspect without understanding it. These are those who are in the lowest heaven. 4) And there are those who merely give attention to its literal meaning, and these are those who give attention only to the words there, like the critics and those who write about various things. The former are on the threshold to heaven, the latter are in its very remotest parts.

7781. 'And all the firstborn of the beasts' means adulterated forms of the good of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'the firstborn' as faith; and from the meaning of 'beast' as affections for good, and in the contrary sense affections for evil, dealt with in 45, 46, 141, 143, 246, 714, 715, 719, 776, 2179, 2180, 3519, 4724, 5198. Such things come to be meant by 'beasts' from representatives in the next life, 3218; and for that reason also such things were meant by the ones used in sacrifices, 2180, 2805, 2807, 2870, 3519. And because 'beasts' meant these things 'the firstborn of the beasts' therefore means the good of truth, at this point when it had been adulterated since it was with the Egyptians, who perverted all truths and forms of good by applying them to evil purposes.