The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nations.” When it uses “nation,” it is talking about a group with the desire for good as its ultimate underlying motivation; when it uses the term “people” it is talking about a group whose deep motivation is to seek true ideas and concepts. As with all symbolism in the Bible, this can be also used in a negative sense, to describe groups with the lust for evil or those driven by false concepts. It can also be used in the abstract, with “nation” representing desires for good themselves and “people” representing true ideas themselves. In a way, these meanings make sense if we look at the two words themselves. “People” brings to mind a collection of individuals, and that is somewhat how it is with ideas -- you can have many of them that inter-relate, but also stand somewhat on their own, individually. “Nation” is a more unified term, reflecting the way that a desire for good tends to unify other feelings.

43. All the individuals in a single community are distanced from each other by the same principle. The better ones, that is, the ones who are more complete in goodness and therefore in love, wisdom, and intelligence, are in the center. Those who are less outstanding surround them at distances graded in proportion to their lessened perfection. It is like the way light decreases from a center toward a circumference. The ones who are in the middle are in the greatest light, while the ones who are toward the perimeter are in less and less.