Arcana Coelestia # 1618
1618. 'And there he built an altar to Jehovah' means worship as the outcome of that state. This is clear from the meaning of 'an altar' as the representative of all worship in general, dealt with already in 921. Worship in the internal sense means all conjunction by means of love and charity. A person is worshipping all the time if love and charity abide in him, external worship being only the outward expression of it. Such is the worship of angels, and therefore with them the sabbath never comes to an end; and this in turn explains why in the internal sense 'the sabbath' means the Lord's kingdom. While a person is in the world however he ought certainly to participate in external worship as well; for it is by external worship that internal things are aroused, and by means of external worship external things are kept holy so as to enable internal to flow in. Furthermore a person is endowed with cognitions by this means, and is made ready to receive celestial things, and also has states of holiness conferred on him, though he is not conscious of this. These states of holiness are preserved by the Lord for his use in eternal life; in fact all the states of his life reappear in the next life.
Numbers 19:14-19
14
"This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
15
Every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean.
16
"Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
17
"For the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering; and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:
18
and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and on all the vessels, and on the persons who were there, and on him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave:
19
and the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify him; and he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.
