7918. 'And you shall take a bunch of hyssop' means the outward means by which purification is effected. This is clear from the meaning of 'hyssop' as outward truth, the means by which purification is effected, dealt with below. It says that they were to take a bunch of hyssop because 'a bunch' is used to refer to truths and the arrangement of them, 5530, 5881, 7408. The reason why 'hyssop' means outward truth, the means of purification, is that all spiritual purification is effected by means of truths. For the earthly and worldly types of love from which a person has to be purified are not recognized except by means of truths. When these truths are instilled by the Lord a horror of those types of love, as of things unclean and damnable, is also at the same time instilled. The effect this horror has is that when something similar enters the person's thinking the feeling of horror returns, producing a loathing of those types of love. That is how a person is purified by truths, which serve as outward means. This was the reason why it was laid down that knives or 'small swords' made of flint should be used when circumcision took place, 'small swords' or knives made of flint being the truths of faith by means of which purification is effected, see 2799, 7044, and 'circumcision purification from filthy types of love, 2039, 2632, 3412, 3413, 4461, 7045.

[2] Since 'hyssop' had that meaning it was used in cleansings, which in the internal sense meant purifications from falsities and evils, as in the cleansing of leprosy in Moses,

The priest shall take for cleansing a leper two living clean birds, and cedarwood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and he shall dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird, and sprinkle over the one to be cleansed. Leviticus 14:4-7.

Hyssop was likewise used in the cleansing of the house, if leprosy was in it, Leviticus 14:49-51. The preparation of the water of separation by which cleansings were accomplished also involved the use of cedarwood and hyssop, Numbers 19:6, 18. 'Cedarwood' meant inward spiritual truth, whereas 'hyssop' meant outward [spiritual] truth. Thus 'cedarwood' is the means effecting purification more internally, 'hyssop' the means effecting it more externally. That 'hyssop' is a means of purification is plainly evident in David,

You will purge me with hyssop and I shall become clean; You will wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow. Psalms 51:7.

'Purging with hyssop and becoming clean' stands for external purification, 'washing and being made whiter than snow' for internal purification, 'snow' and 'whiteness' having reference to truth, 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319. 'Hyssop' means a very low kind of truth and 'cedar' a superior kind of truth, as is evident from the following words in the first Book of Kings, Solomon spoke about trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon even to the hyssop which comes out of the wall. 1 Kings 4:33.

Here 'the cedar' stands for the internal kind of truth and 'hyssop' for the external kind of truth that belong to intelligence.

5881. 'For they were filled with dismay at his presence' means turmoil among them. This is clear from the meaning of 'being filled with dismay' as turmoil; dismay is nothing other than this. Turmoil is used to mean the rearrangement and reordering of truths within the natural, a reordering about which the following ought to be known: The order in which the factual knowledge and the truths in the human memory are arranged is not known by men; but angels know it, if the Lord so pleases. It is an amazing order - facts and truths are grouped together in bundles, as also are the actual bundles; and all this in keeping with the interconnection of things of which the person has gained a mental grasp. The way they are grouped together is more amazing than anyone can ever imagine. In the next life visual presentations of them sometimes appear; for in the light of heaven, which is a spiritual light, things such as these can be displayed for the eye to see in a way utterly impossible in the light of the world. The arrangement of the facts and truths into those bundle-like forms depends entirely on the person's loves. Self-love and love of the world leads to their being arranged into hellish forms, whereas love towards the neighbour and love to God leads to their being arranged into heavenly ones. Consequently when a person is being regenerated and the good of the internal man is becoming joined to the truths of the external man, turmoil develops among the truths; for they are being rearranged into a different order. This turmoil is what is being described here and is meant by their being filled with dismay. The dismay which comes to be felt at this time reveals itself through anxiety arising out of the change in the state immediately before; that is to say, it arises out of being deprived of the delight which had been present in that state. The same turmoil also reveals itself through anxiety over the life they had previously led, in that they had relegated internal good and the internal itself to the lowest parts of their minds - an anxiety dealt with in what follows.