The heart means love. A good heart means love to the Lord and to the neighbor, while a hard or stony heart means the love of self or the world -- riches and things. When the psalmist asks the Lord to search his heart, he wants the Lord to see what it is that he loves. And we are what we love. What we eat may form our earthly body, but it's only temporary, what we love forms our spiritual body, beautiful or ugly as we have chosen. It's interesting to note that the first multi-cellular motion of our embryo is the pulsating that starts in a twist of blood vessel that is to become our heart, and the last motion of our natural body is our heartbeat. It is there for all of our natural life. And of course there is a beating heart in our spiritual bodies when we come to put them on.

5087. 'And the chief of the attendants set Joseph over them' means that under the influence of the things first and foremost in explanations the celestial of the natural taught those bodily senses. This is clear from the meaning of 'the chief of the attendants' as the things that are first and foremost in explanations, dealt with in 4790, 4966, 5084; from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial of the natural, dealt with immediately above in 5086; and from the meaning of 'being set over here as teaching, for one who is 'set over' things that are cast aside so that they may be examined and corrected performs the function of a teacher.