2. Before treating of the New Jerusalem and its doctrine, something shall be said of the New Heaven and the New Earth. In the small work on The Last Judgment and the Destruction of Babylon it was shown what is meant by the "first heaven and the first earth" which had passed away. After they had passed away, and thus after the Last Judgment had been accomplished, the new heaven was created, that is, formed by the Lord. This heaven was formed of all those who after the Lord's advent even to the present time, had lived a life of faith and charity; since they alone were forms of heaven. For the form of heaven, according to which all consociations and communications are there effected, is the form of Divine Truth from the Divine Good which proceeds from the Lord; and this form a man puts on as to his spirit by a life according to Divine Truth.

That the form of heaven is from this source, may be seen in the work Heaven and Hell 200-212; and that all angels are forms of heaven, in Heaven and Hell 51-58, 73-77. From this it may be known, of whom the new heaven was composed, and hence also what its quality is; namely, that it is altogether of one mind; for he, who lives a life of faith and charity, loves another as himself, and through love conjoins him to himself, and thus reciprocally and mutually, because love in the spiritual world is conjunction. When, therefore, all act alike, then from many, yea, from countless numbers consociated according to the form of heaven, there arises one mind, and there results, as it were, a one; for there is nothing which separates and divides, but everything conjoins and unites.

9488. 'And a cubit and a half its breadth' means what is complete so far as truth is concerned. This is clear from the meaning of 'one and a half' as what is complete, the reason why this number means what is complete being that 'three' has this meaning (for the half of a number is similar in meaning to the whole number, because a number that results from multiplication keeps the same meaning as a simple number of which it is the product through multiplication, 5291, 5335. Regarding 'three', that it means what is complete, see 2788, 7715, 9198; and that all numbers in the Word mean spiritual realities, 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 5291, 5335, 5708, 6175, 7973); and from the meaning of 'breadth' as truth, dealt with immediately above in 9487.

3677. 'The brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother' means the relationship through the mother of the good of truth, represented by 'Jacob', with the truth of good, represented by 'Esau'. This is clear from the representation of 'Rebekah' as the Lord's Divine Rational as regards Divine Truth, often dealt with already, from the representation of 'Jacob' as the good of truth, or good which springs from truth in the natural, and from the representation of 'Esau' as the truth of good, or good from which truth springs in the natural, dealt with above in 3669. And seeing that all goods and truths which exist in the natural or external man are conceived and born from the rational or internal man, that is to say, from the good of the rational as the father, and from the truth of the rational as the mother, 3314, 3573, 3616, those words therefore mean a relationship through the mother of the good of truth, represented by 'Jacob', with the truth of good, represented by 'Esau'. This is exactly how they are related to one another.

[2] But to explain these things intelligibly is extremely difficult, the reason being that the most general features of this matter are not known at the present day, such as what spiritual good is and what the truth that goes with it is, and that there are countless genera of good and accompanying truth, and still more countless species, and also that there are degrees of them which are interconnected like those of blood relationships and relationships by marriage. While these very general features remain unknown a description of degrees and relationships would not be at all clear to anyone, especially at the present day when the learned have no wish to know those things. For these do not like to go beneath the surface of these matters and discuss the nature of them, only whether they exist or not. And as long as that is their state they have no wish at all to know anything about those countless kinds of good and truth.