4875. 'Your cord' means through truth, that is to say, truth accompanying the token of consent. This is clear from the meaning of 'a cord' as truth. The reason 'a cord' means truth is that it is one of the items associated with 'garments', and 'garments' in general means truths, for the reason that as garments clothe the flesh, so truths clothe good, 297, 2132, 2576, 4545, 4763. Among the ancients therefore whatever clothing they wore meant some specific or individual truth. Consequently a tunic had one meaning, a chlamys another, and a toga another; also coverings for the head, such as a turban and a mitre, had one meaning, coverings for the thighs and feet, such as breeches, stockings, and so on, had another meaning. But 'a cord' meant outermost or lowest truth, for it was made from threads twisted together, by which the final demarcation of that kind of truth was meant. This kind of truth is again meant by 'a cord' in Moses,

Every open vessel on which there is no covering [or] cord [to fasten it] is unclean. Numbers 19:15.

By this was meant that nothing should exist without having an outer limit, for that which does not have an outer limit is 'open'. Furthermore outermost truths serve as the outer limit and terminus of interior truths.

7248. I have been told that the inhabitants of that planet who, when they die and become spirits, appear on this side of it derive the greatest pleasure out of acts of plunder, and most especially out of eating from the plunder. The delight they experience when they think about eating from the plunder was conveyed to me, and I perceived that it was very great. The fact that people with that kind of bestial nature have also inhabited our own planet is evident from the history of various nations, and also from the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, 1 Samuel 30:16, as well as from the Jewish and Israelite nation in David's time, in that they made raids every year on nations, pillaged them, and rejoiced in the pillage. So far as these inhabitants of the planet Venus are concerned, they do indeed find pleasure in acts of plunder; yet they are not cruel. They throw people whom they despoil into water, using that as the method to put them to death; but they keep alive those they can. They afterwards bury those whom they have put to death in that way, which shows that there is some humanity in them, unlike the Jews, whose delight it was to cast aside those they killed and expose them to be devoured by wild animals of the forest or by birds, and sometimes to put them to death in a savage and cruel manner, 2 Samuel 12:31. How much delight the Jews took in such practices I was also allowed to recognize in the sphere conveyed to me from those who, in great numbers, quickly came near and then fled.