3450. Verses 28-29 And they said, We saw clearly that Jehovah was with you, and we said, Let there be now a solemn agreement between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you. If you do us no harm as we have not touched you and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace; you are now the blessed of Jehovah.

'They said, We saw clearly that Jehovah was with you' means that they knew the Divine to be present within it. 'And we said, Let there be now a solemn agreement between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you' means that their matters of doctrine concerning faith, regarded in themselves, should not be refused recognition. 'That you do us no harm as we have not touched you and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace' means that they had not done and would not do violence to the internal sense of the Word. 'You are now the blessed of Jehovah' means that it came from the Divine.

684. THE COMMUNITIES THAT CONSTITUTE HEAVEN

There are three heavens, the first where good spirits are, the second where angelic spirits are, and the third where angels are. One heaven is interior to and purer than the next, which means that they are entirely distinct and separate from one another. The first heaven divides into countless communities, as do the second and the third, and each community consists of many individuals who, because of the harmony and unanimity that exist among them, in effect constitute one person. At the same time, all the communities in effect constitute one human being. Communities differ in nature from one another according to the way their mutual love and faith in the Lord varies. These differences are so countless that it is not possible to count up even the most general kinds of them. Even the smallest of differences fits into the perfectly ordered arrangement of the whole, and so contributes in perfect unanimity to a general unity, as does the general unity to the unanimity among individuals. Each individual therefore contributes to the happiness of all, and all to that of each individual. Consequently every angel and every community is an image of the whole of heaven and is so to speak heaven in miniature.