9606. 'On the edge of the one curtain at the end in the joining-place' means of one sphere to the other, that is to say, the joining together of the two. This is clear from the meaning of 'the edge of the curtain at the end in the joining-place' as the place where one ends and the other begins, thus the boundary where the two come together. The reason why a sphere is what is meant is that in heaven spheres come together; for there are spheres that go out from each angelic community in heaven, and from each angel in a community. These spheres from each one emanate from the life of their affections for truth and good; and they spread a long way out. This explains why the character of spirits and angels is recognizable when they are a long way off. Those spheres are what bind angels and angelic communities together and they are also what split them apart; for similar spheres, that is, similar affections for truth and good, come together, and dissimilar ones move apart. But see what has been shown already about those spheres in 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1520, 1695, 2401, 2489, 4464, 5179, 6206 (end), 6598-6613, 7454, 8630, 8794, 8797, 9490-9492, 9498, 9534. Whether you say the angels and angelic communities, or the truth and good, from which the spheres emanate it amounts to the same thing, for the spheres are emanations from affections for truth and good, by virtue of which the angels are angels from the Lord. It should be recognized that to the extent that these spheres originate in the Lord they come together, but to the extent that they originate in the self of an angel they move apart. From this it is evident that the Lord alone brings them together.

9498. 'And you shall put the poles into the rings' means the power of the Divine sphere. This is clear from the meaning of 'the poles' as power, dealt with just above in 9496; and from the meaning of 'the rings' as Divine Truth joined to Divine Good, which lie in every direction round about, also dealt with above, in 9493, thus the Divine sphere which surrounds and embraces heaven as a whole, and every heavenly community and actual angel specifically, in accord with what has been shown already in 9490, 9492. For Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good should not be envisaged as speech and its passage into an ear but rather as a sphere emanating from the sun, which gradually diminishes in heat and brightness as it gets further away from the sun, and eventually becomes so moderated that it is accommodated to angels' ability to receive it. Within this sphere, but far away from the sun on account of its heat and brightness, lies the angelic heaven. That sphere also extends outside heaven, right on into hell; those there however do not receive it in the right way but turn it into the opposite. From this it becomes clear what should be understood by the Divine sphere which embraces and contains heaven, namely Divine Truth emanating in that manner from the Lord's Divine Good, consequently Divine Truth joined to Divine Good, which lies in every direction round about heaven and round about those who are in heaven. The heat emanating from the Lord as the Sun there is the Divine Good of His Divine Love, accommodated to the ability of the angels in heaven to receive it; and the light emanating from the Lord as the Sun is the Divine Truth of His Divine Good. Both that heat and light however are called the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord.