5704. 'The firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth' means in conformity with the order truths take beneath good. This is clear from the meaning of 'taking seats according to birthright, and according to youth' as in conformity with the order truths take beneath good. The sons of Israel represent the truths known to the Church existing in their proper order, see the explanation at Chapters 29, 30 of Genesis, and therefore taking their seats according to their order of birth means in conformity with the order truths take. But the truths known to the Church, which 'the sons of Israel' represent, do not come to be arranged into any kind of proper order except through Christian good, that is, through the good of charity towards the neighbour and of love to the Lord. For good has the Lord within it, and therefore has heaven within it. Good consequently has life within it, making it a force that is active and filled with life. But truth devoid of good cannot possibly have any life within it. Good arranges truths into order in keeping with itself, as is quite evident from every kind of love, including self-love and love of the world, and so such love as gives rise to vengeance, hatred, and other evils like these. People governed by those loves call evil good because they take delight in evil. This so-called good of theirs imposes a certain kind of order on those falsities which to them are truths - a kind of order that enables these falsities to lend support to it, till at length all those falsities, which they call truths, are arranged into an order that becomes a sequence of false beliefs. But this order is the kind of order that exists in hell, whereas the order in which truths are ranged beneath the good of heavenly love is the kind that exists in heaven. This also explains why a person with whom the latter kind of order resides, that is, a person who has been regenerated, is called a miniature heaven and also is heaven in the smallest form of all that it can take; for his interiors correspond to the heavens.

[2] The fact that good is what brings order to truths is evident from order as it exists in the heavens. All the communities there are ranged in conformity with the order in which truths that are received from the Lord exist beneath good. For [in His own Being] the Lord is nothing else than Divine Good, while Divine Truth, which does not exist within Him, goes forth from Him. And it is in conformity with this Divine Truth ranged beneath Divine Good that all the communities of heaven have been arranged into order. As regards the Lord's being nothing else than Divine Love whereas Divine Truth does not exist within Him but goes forth from Him, this can be illustrated by a comparison made with the sun of this world. The sun is nothing else than fire, while its light does not exist within it but goes forth from it. What is more, objects in the world dependent on light, such as plants, are subject to the order imparted to them by the heat that goes forth from the fire of the sun and exists within the light of the sun, as is evident in springtime and summertime. For since the Whole natural order is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, so is this whole situation involving the sun representative. The sun represents the Lord; its fire represents His Divine Love; the heat from it represents the good that flows from this Love, and its light the truths that constitute faith. And since they have these representations, 'the sun' is also used in the spiritual sense of the Word to mean the Lord, 1053, 1521, 1529-1531, 3636, 3643, 4321 (end), 5097, 5377, 'fire' to mean love, 934, 4906, 5071, 5215, so that the sun's fire in a representative sense is Divine Love, while the heat from that fire is good flowing from Divine love. As regards 'light' meaning truth, see 2776, 3138, 3190, 3195, 3222, 3339, 3636, 3643, 3862, 3993, 4302, 4409, 4413, 4415, 4526, 5219, 5400.

4906. 'Bring her out, and let her be burnt' means that it - that is to say, the internal aspect of the Church which Tamar represented - should be exterminated. This is clear from the meaning of 'bringing her out, and burning her' as exterminating, 'bringing out' having reference to the truth and 'burning' to the good which were to be exterminated. The use of 'burning' in reference to the extermination of good is clear from many places in the Word. The reason for the usage is that in the spiritual sense 'fire' and 'flame' mean good, 934, and the heat radiated from them the affection for good, while 'fire' and 'flame' in the contrary sense mean evil, and the heat radiated from these the affection for evil, 1297, 1861, 2446. Also, in actual fact good is spiritual fire from which spiritual heat which is life-giving is radiated; and evil too is a fire, but from this a heat which is a consuming one is radiated. Anyone who turns his attention to this matter and reflects on it can plainly see that the good of love is spiritual fire, and that the affection for that good is spiritual heat if he reflects on the question where do man's vital fire and heat come from, he will discover that love is the source of it; for as soon as love departs a person begins to grow cold, but as love increases in him he becomes warmer. Unless man's vital fire and heat came from that source he could not possibly have life at all. But this life-bringing fire or spiritual heat becomes among the evil a destroying and consuming fire, for in their case it is converted into this kind of fire. Among living creatures which do not possess reason spiritual heat likewise flows in and brings life, but life which is varied, depending on the ways in which their organic forms, and therefore their knowledge and innate affections receive that life, as with bees and all other creatures.