1050. And every living soul of all flesh. That this signifies the whole human race, is evident from the signification of “living soul of all flesh.” Every man is called a living soul from what is living in him. No man can ever live, still less as a man, if he has not something living in him, that is, if he has not something of innocence, of charity, and of mercy, or something from it like or emulating it. This something of innocence, charity, and mercy man receives from the Lord during infancy and childhood, as is evident from the state of infants and also from that of childhood. What the man then receives is preserved in him, and the things that are preserved are called in the Word “remains” and are of the Lord alone in the man. What is thus preserved is what causes the man, when he comes to adult age, to be capable of being a man. (Concerning remains see what is said above, n. 468, 530, 560-563, 576)

[2] That the states of innocence, charity, and mercy which a man has had in infancy and during the years of childhood, cause him to be capable of being a man, is plainly evident from this, that man is not born into any exercise of life, as brute animals are, but has everything to learn, and what he learns becomes by exercise habitual, and thus as it were natural to him. He cannot even walk or speak until he learns, and so with everything else. By use these things become as it were natural to him. And such is the case also with the states of innocence, charity, and mercy with which he is in like manner imbued from infancy, and without which states he would be much viler than a brute. Yet these are states which man does not learn, but receives as a gift from the Lord, and which the Lord preserves in him. Together with the truths of faith, they are also what are called “remains” and are of the Lord alone. Insofar as a man in adult age extinguishes these states, he becomes dead. When a man is being regenerated, these states are the beginnings of regeneration, and he is led into them; for the Lord works through the remains, as already stated.

[3] These remains with every man are what are here called the “living soul of all flesh.” That “all flesh” signifies every man, and thus the whole human race, is evident from the signification of “flesh” everywhere in the Word. (See what was shown in n. 574.)

As in Matthew:

Except those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved (Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20).

In John:

Jesus said, Father glorify Thy Son, as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh (John 17:2).

In Isaiah:

And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together (Isaiah 40:5).

And again:

And all flesh shall know that I Jehovah am thy Savior (Isaiah 49:26).

576. That the number “ten” and also “tenths” signify remains, is evident from the following passages of the Word:

Many houses shall be a desolation, great and fair, without an inhabitant; for ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah (Isaiah 5:9-10),

speaking of the vastation of things spiritual and celestial: “ten acres of vineyard making a bath” signifies that the remains of things spiritual were so few; and “the seed of a homer yielding an ephah” signifies that there were so few remains of things celestial. In the same:

And many things are forsaken in the midst of the land, yet in it shall be a tenth part, and it shall return, and nevertheless it shall be consumed (Isaiah 6:12-13); where the “midst of the land” signifies the internal man; a “tenth part” signifies the smallness of the remains.

In Ezekiel:

Ye shall have balances of justice, and an ephah of justice, and a bath of justice: the ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, the bath to contain the tenth of a homer, and an ephah the tenth of a homer; the measure thereof shall be after the homer; and the ordinance of oil, a bath of oil, the tenth of a bath out of a kor, ten baths to the homer, for ten baths are a homer (Ezekiel 45:10-11, 14);

in this passage the holy things of Jehovah are treated of by measures, whereby are signified the kinds of the holy things; by “ten” are here signified the remains of celestial and of the derivative spiritual things; for unless such holy arcana were contained herein, what could be the use or intent of describing so many measures determined by numbers, as is done in this and the former chapters in the same Prophet, where the subject is the heavenly Jerusalem and the New Temple?

[2] In Amos:

The virgin Israel is fallen, she shall no more rise. Thus saith the Lord Jehovih, The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred remaining, and that which went out a hundred, shall have ten remaining to the house of Israel (Amos 5:2-3),

where, speaking of remains, it is said that very little would be left, being only a “tenth part” or remains of remains. Again:

I abhor the pride of Jacob and his palaces, and will shut up the city, and its fullness, and it shall come to pass if there shall be left ten men in one house they shall even die (Amos 6:8-9),

speaking of remains which should scarcely remain.

In Moses:

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah, even the tenth generation of them shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah to eternity (Deuteronomy 23:3);

“an Ammonite and a Moabite” signify the profanation of the celestial and spiritual things of faith, the “remains” of which are spoken of in what precedes.

[3] Hence it appears also that “tenths” represent remains. And so in Malachi:

Bring ye all the tithes [tenths] into the treasure-house, that there may be booty in My house, and let them prove Me, bestir ye in this, if I will not open for you the cataracts of heaven, and pour you out a blessing (Malachi 3:10);

“that there may be booty in My house” signifies remains in the internal man, which are compared to “booty” because they are insinuated as by stealth among so many evils and falsities; and it is by these remains that all blessing comes. That all man’s charity comes by the remains which are in the internal man, was also represented in the Jewish Church by this statute: that when they had made an end of tithing all the tithes, they should give to the Levite, to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow (Deuteronomy 26:12).

[4] Inasmuch as remains are of the Lord alone, therefore the tenths are called “holiness to Jehovah”; as in Moses:

All the tenths of the land, of the seed of the land, of the fruit of the tree, they are Jehovah’s, holiness to Jehovah: all the tenths of the herd and of the flock, whatsoever passeth under the (pastoral) rod, the tenth shall be holiness to Jehovah (Leviticus 27:30-31).

That the Decalogue consisted of “ten” precepts, or “ten” words, and that Jehovah wrote them on tables (Deuteronomy 10:4), signifies remains, and their being written by the hand of Jehovah signifies that remains are of the Lord alone; their being in the internal man was represented by the tables.