9264. 'For I will not justify the wicked' means that such malevolence is contrary to Divine righteousness. This is clear from the meaning of 'justifying' as declaring innocent and acquitting, but in this instance not acquitting since it says 'I will not justify' (that 'justifying' can also mean declaring innocent and acquitting is evident from the legal meaning of the word, as well as from the following in Matthew,

By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Matthew 12:37.

And in Luke,

You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. Luke 16:15); and from the meaning of 'the wicked' as malevolence, dealt with above in 9249. Malevolence, which is spoken of here as being contrary to Divine righteousness, consists in destroying good, interior and exterior, meant by 'killing the innocent and the righteous', who are the subject just above in 9262, 9263. Such good is destroyed when Divine Truth and Good received from the Lord are disowned. When a person disowns them they are annihilated, and so is the Lord Himself, the Source from whom all good that is good comes and all truth that is true. When they have been annihilated the person no longer has any spiritual life or consequently any salvation. They - truth and good - are annihilated when people disown what is Divine and the Lord's, and also when they disown the Word since this is Divine Truth received from the Lord and concerning the Lord. Disowning this, when one has previously acknowledged it and accepted it in faith, and so annihilating it, is the sin against the Holy Spirit which is not forgiven, Matthew 12:31. For the Holy Spirit is Divine Truth and Good, being the Holiness which emanates from the Lord, 9229. The same thing is also meant by 'shedding innocent blood', dealt with just above. The truth that such malevolence is not forgiven because it is contrary to Divine righteousness is meant by 'I will not justify the wicked'.

2849. 'Like the stars of the heavens' means a whole multitude of cognitions of good and truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'the stars' as cognitions of good and truth, dealt with in 1808, 2495. Those who are spiritual are compared in various places in the Word to 'the stars', this comparison being made for the reason that they possess cognitions of good and truth, whereas those who are celestial are not so compared because they do not possess cognitions but perceptions. And a further reason for the comparison is that the stars illuminate the night, and those who are spiritual have a night-time light - like that shed by the moon and stars - in comparison with the day-time light in which those dwell who are celestial. For more regarding the truth that those who are spiritual, compared with those who are celestial, dwell in obscurity, see 1043, 2708, 2715.