5312. 'And all my people shall kiss you on the mouth' means that everything there shall obey it. This is clear from the meaning of 'kissing on the mouth' as accepting and carrying out what is commanded, and so being obedient; and from the meaning of 'all my people' as everything in the natural. 'People' means truths, see 1259, 1260, 3581, 4619, and so cognitions of good and truth, also factual knowledge, present in the natural, since these are truths as they exist within the natural, 5276.

5071. The reason why the expression 'cursed' is used of those on the left and why their punishment is called 'eternal fire' in the following statements -'Then He will also say to those on the left, Depart from Me, O cursed ones, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' and 'these will go away into eternal punishment' - is that they have turned away from good and truth and have turned towards evil and falsity. 'Cursing' in the internal sense of the Word means a turning away, 245, 379, 1427, 3570, 3584. The eternal fire into which they were to depart is not material fire, nor is it a tormented conscience, but a craving for evil. For cravings like this in a person are spiritual fires which consume him during the life of the body and torment him in the next life. Because of these fires burning within them, the inhabitants of hell use dreadful methods to torture one another.

[2] Eternal fire is clearly not material fire; and the reason it is not a tormented conscience is that none who are governed by evil have any conscience; and those who have had no conscience during their lifetime cannot have any in the next life. But the reason eternal fire is a craving is that the entire fire of life in a person is fuelled by his loves, a heavenly fire by the love of what is good and true, a hellish fire by the love of what is evil and false. Or what amounts to the same, a heavenly fire is fuelled by love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, and a hellish fire by self-love and love of the world. Anyone can see, if he stops to think, that all the fire or heat burning within a person is fuelled by his loves. This also explains why love is called spiritual heat and why in the Word fire and heat have no other meaning, 934 (end), 1297, 1527, 1528, 1861, 2446, 4906. The fire of life in the evil is also such that when they feel very strong cravings, a kind of fire is also burning in them, which inflames them with an intense and furious desire to torment others. But the fire of life in the good is such that when a higher level of affection exists with them, a kind of fire is alight in them too. But this fire inflames them with a loving and zealous desire to do good to others.

1705. 'The brother of Eshkol and the brother of Aner, and these men were Abram's allies' means the state of the Rational Man in relation to the External Man as regards the nature of its goods and truths. This becomes clear from the meaning of these same men, discussed below at verse 24, where also they are mentioned by name. To put it briefly, Mamre, Eshkol, and Aner represent and mean the angels residing with the Lord when in earliest childhood He engaged in conflict, who were sufficiently equal to the goods and truths present with the Lord at that time. It is from goods and truths that angels receive their names. No angel in heaven has any personal name, but it is goods and truths from which names are bestowed on them, as with Michael and other angels mentioned in the Word. These are not angels possessing such personal names but angels so named because of the function they perform, whatever this may be. It is similar here with Mamre, Eshkol, and Aner, though these names are used representatively.