6729. 'And the daughter of Pharaoh went down' means the kind of religion practised there. This is clear from the meaning of 'the daughter' as an affection for truth and good, and from this as the Church, dealt with in 2362, 3963, and in the contrary sense as an affection for falsity and evil, and from this as the kind of religion that springs from them, 3024. Here the kind of religion that springs from false factual knowledge is meant because the daughter is Pharaoh's; for 'Pharaoh' here represents false factual knowledge, 6651, 6679, 6683, 6692. In the Word Churches are meant by 'daughters', as may be recognized from the very many places in which the Church is called the daughter of Zion, and the daughter of Jerusalem. The false religions of quite a number of nations are also meant by 'daughters', as is evident from the places where those religions are called daughters, for example, the daughter of Tyre, Psalms 45:12; the daughter of Edom, Lamentations 4:22; the daughter of the Chaldeans and of Babel, Isaiah 47:1, 5; Jeremiah 50:41-42; Jeremiah 51:33; Zechariah 2:7, Psalms 137:8; the daughter of the Philistines, Ezekiel 16:27, 57; the daughter of Tarshish, Isaiah 23:10. 'The daughter of Egypt' is spoken of in Jeremiah,

Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! Make for yourself vessels of migration, O inhabitant daughter of Egypt! The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame; she has been delivered into the hand of the people from the north. Jeremiah 46:11, 19, 24.

'The daughter of Egypt' stands for an affection for reasoning that relies, since a negative attitude of mind reigns, on factual knowledge - reasoning whether the truths of faith are indeed true. Thus she stands for the kind of religion which springs from that reasoning, a religion in which there is no belief in anything except what is false.

9874. 'Enclosed in gold shall they be in their settings' means that all of them in general and each in particular must emanate from the good belonging to the love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'gold' as the good of love, dealt with in 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917, 8932, 9490, 9510; and from the meaning of 'being enclosed in it in their settings' as emanating from that good. For every single stone was surrounded by and so enclosed in gold, and since 'gold' means the good of love what is enclosed means that which exists or emanates from that good. The like is meant in verse 11 of the present chapter by the sockets of gold which surrounded the two shoham stones placed on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod.

[2] The implications of all this are that the breastplate and its twelve stones represented every good and truth in the heavens and so represented all heaven, as shown above. Moreover not only the heavens but also every community in the heavens, indeed each angel within a community, is surrounded by a Divine sphere, which consists of Divine Good and Truth emanating from the Lord, see where this is dealt with in 9490-9492, 9498, 9499, 9534. And since the good and truth of this sphere is received by the angels, so also every single thing present with them emanates from there; for each angel is heaven in the smallest form it takes. The actual good emanating from the Lord is what the gold around the stones and enclosing them represents.

[3] The truth that this good is the good of love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord may be recognized from the consideration that all good belongs to love, for what a person loves he calls good and also feels to be such. From this it is evident that heavenly good is the good of love to the Lord, for this love is what joins angel and man to the Lord; through this love they are brought to Him and enjoy all the good of heaven. It is well known in the Church that this good comes from the Lord, for the teaching of the Church is that all good originates in God and none at all in oneself. From this it is evident that the good of love shown to the Lord must come from the Lord, and that good from any other source is not good.