Gates" in ancient times had a significance that does not hold in the modern world. Cities then were enclosed by walls for protection; gates in the walls let people in and out to do their business, but were also the weak points in the cities' defenses. In the Bible, cities on one level represent the minds of individual people. On a broader level, they represent beliefs shared by a community. The gates, then, represent openings where the Lord can feed us an understanding of truth and a desire for good. They also represent points where the hells can invade and sway us with false ideas and evil desires. We are kept in balance during our lifetimes, with influences from both the Lord and from hell. Ideally, we will over our lifetimes continue to invite the Lord farther and farther in and drive the hells back until ultimately the Lord can occupy our minds completely. And that point our belief in Him and His power and love will hold the gates and deny evil any entrance. As individuals, we at that point become angels. As communities, we at that point become part of the Lord's church. And at that point the gates become an entry point, introductory truths that allow people to enter churches and start bringing the Lord into their lives.

1941. 'And it will not be numbered for multitude' means being multiplied immeasurably. This is clear without explanation. By these words is meant the truth which in this manner will increase immeasurably from good. Because with the Lord, who is the subject here in the internal sense, all things are Divine and Infinite, these matters as they apply to Him cannot be put into words. Consequently, so that some idea may be obtained of what the multiplication of truth from good entails, it must be spoken of as it applies to man. In his case, if governed by good, that is, by love and charity, seed from the Lord is made fruitful and is multiplied to such an extent that it cannot be numbered for multitude. That fruitfulness and multiplication is not very much during his life in the body, but in the next life it is unbelievably increased, for as long as he lives in the body it is seed Lying in ground of a bodily nature, among an entangled and dense mass of factual knowledge and bodily delights, and also cares and anxieties. But once these have been cast off, as happens when he passes over into the next life, the seed is set free from those things and starts to grow, just like the seed of a tree which, when it comes up out of the ground, grows into a small tree, then into a large tree, and is after that multiplied into a garden of trees. For all knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, and the forms of delight and happiness that go with them, are in a similar way made fruitful and are multiplied, and are thereby for ever increasing. And they begin from the smallest of seeds, as the Lord teaches in Matthew 13:31, by reference to the grain of mustard seed. This becomes quite clear from the knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom that angels possess, which during the time they were men had been to them beyond words.