7833. 'According to the household of his fathers, a member of the flock according to the household' means according to each one's specific kind of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'household of fathers' as one family's good, distinct from another's good; for 'a father's house' means a person in respect of internal good, 3128. The implications of this are as follows: All the tribes of Israel mean all forms of the truth and good of faith and charity in their entirety, each tribe meaning one general kind of good or of truth, see 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6375, 6377, 6640. Thus every separate family within a tribe meant a specific kind of good, and therefore the good of one specifically, distinct from another's good. But the household of the fathers within a family meant an individual type belonging to one specific kind. The reason why all these kinds of good were meant by the tribes, families, and households into which the children of Israel were divided was in order that they might represent heaven; for the varieties of good there are divided into general, specific, and individual. And these determine the ways in which angels are linked to one another. It should be recognized that one person's good is never exactly the same as another's good. Rather, they are varied, so varied that they can be distinguished into higher overall categories, and these into lower sub-divisions, down to particular and most particular kinds. Regarding forms of the good of love and faith, that they are so varied, see 684, 690, 3241, 3267, 3744-3746, 3986, 4005, 4149, 5598, 7236. From this it may now be evident why they were commanded to take for themselves each one a member of the flock according to the household of his fathers, a member according to the household.

4149. 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' means that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good. This is clear from the meaning of 'gods' which in this case are the teraphim, as truths, dealt with in 4111, not however the truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but to the affection which 'Rachel' represents. It is because those truths are meant by 'gods' here that the reference to Rachel's having stolen them is added. And more concerning them appears further on which would not have been recorded if that deed of hers had not entailed arcana which are evident solely in the internal sense. And because the truths under discussion here were not truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but those belonging to the affection for truth which 'Rachel' represents, the words 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' therefore mean that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good.

[2] The implication of this arcanum is that all spiritual good has its own truths, for wherever that good exists truths are present also. Regarded in itself good is a single whole, but it is made various by means of truths. Indeed truths may be compared to the fibres which compose some organ of the body. It is the form which these fibres take that determines the nature of the organ and therefore of its function. And this - that is to say, its function - is dependent on the life which flows in through the soul, a life that comes from good which originates in the Lord. So although good is a single whole it nevertheless varies with each individual; it is so varying that it is never exactly the same with one person as with another. This also is why one person's truth cannot possibly abide in another person's good. For all the truths residing with someone in whom good is present intercommunicate and produce some form or other. For this reason one person's truth cannot be transferred to another, for when it is transferred it passes into the form that is peculiar to the recipient and takes on a different appearance. But this arcanum demands exploration which is too deep to enable it to be revealed in just a few words. This explains why the mind of one person is never exactly like another's, but that the differences in people's affections and ways of thinking are as numerous as the people themselves. It also explains why the whole of heaven consists of angelic forms which are endlessly varying. Arranged by the Lord into the form heaven takes, those forms act as a single whole. For no single whole is ever composed of parts that are identical but of those that are various existing in a single form and which make one in keeping with that form. This now shows what is meant by the statement that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his own - 'Jacob's' - good.