10110. To fill their hand. That this signifies to receive Divine truth, is evident from the signification of “filling the hand,” as being to represent the Lord as to Divine truth, and its capability of communication and reception there (see n. 10076). It is said that they should “eat the holy things in which expiation was made, to fill their hand,” and by these things is signified the appropriation of good with those who are purified from evils and the derivative falsities, thus to receive Divine truth.

[2] The case herein is this. The first of all that is appropriated to man is good, and successively truth. The reason is that good is the ground, and truth is the seed; just so in like manner does good adopt truth and conjoin it with itself, because it loves it like a parent. For there is a heavenly conjugial relation between good and truth; and good is that which makes the life with man, because good is of the will, and the will of man is the man himself; whereas truth does not make the life with man except insofar as it partakes of good, because truth is of the understanding, and the understanding without the will is not the man himself, but only an entrance to the man, for entrance is made through the understanding.

[3] Man may be compared to a house in which are a number of rooms, one of which leads into another. They who are in truths as to the understanding only, are not in any room of the house, but only in the court; but insofar as through the understanding truth enters into the will, so far the man enters into the rooms and dwells in the house. Moreover, in the Word man is compared to a house, and the truth which is of the understanding alone is compared to a court; but the truth which has been made also of the will, and has there become good, is compared to an inhabited room and to the very bedchamber.

[4] That good is that which is first of all appropriated to man from the Lord is evident from his infancy and early childhood; when, as is well known, he has the good of innocence and the good of love toward his parents and toward his nurse, and the good of charity toward his infant companions. This good flows in from the Lord with infants so that it may serve in advancing age for the first of the Lord’s life with man, and thus for a plane to receive truths. This good is also preserved with a man when he grows up, if he does not destroy it by a life of evil and a faith of falsity thence derived. When we speak of good, charity toward the neighbor is meant, and love to the Lord, for all that which is of love and charity is good. (That with those who are being regenerated good is in the first place and truth in the second, although it appears otherwise, see n. 3325, 3494, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930, 6256, 6269, 6272, 6273.)

4931. CONTINUATION CONCERNING THE CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE GRAND MAN, HERE CONCERNING THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE HANDS, ARMS, FEET, AND LOINS THEREWITH.

It has been already shown that the whole heaven has reference to one Man with his several organs, members, and viscera; and this because heaven has reference to the Lord, for the Lord is the all in all of heaven, insomuch that heaven is in the proper sense the Divine good and Divine truth which are from the Lord. For this reason heaven is distinguished into as many provinces, so to speak, as there are viscera, organs, and members in man, and with these also there is correspondence. Unless there were such a correspondence of man with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord, man would not subsist even a single moment. All these things are kept in connection by influx.

[2] But all these provinces have reference to two kingdoms—the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom. The celestial kingdom is the kingdom of the heart in the Grand Man, and the spiritual kingdom is the kingdom of the lungs; in like manner as in man, in the whole and every part of whom reign the heart and the lungs. These two kingdoms are wonderfully conjoined; and this conjunction is represented in the conjunction of the heart and lungs in man, and in the conjunction of their operations in the several members and viscera.

[3] While man is an embryo, or while he is yet in the womb, he is in the kingdom of the heart; but when he has come forth from the womb, he comes into the kingdom of the lungs; and if through the truths of faith he suffers himself to be brought into the good of love, he then returns from the kingdom of the lungs into the kingdom of the heart in the Grand Man; for he thus comes a second time into the womb and is born again. Then also these two kingdoms are conjoined in him, but in an inverted order; for previously the kingdom of the heart in him was under the rule of the lungs, that is, the truth of faith previously ruled in him; but afterward the good of charity rules. That the heart corresponds to the good of love, and the lungs to the truth of faith, may be seen above (n. 3635, 3883-3896).