9688. 'The work of an embroiderer' means things that belong to factual knowledge. This is clear from the meaning of 'the work of an embroiderer', or embroidery, as factual knowledge. A large number of places in the Word speak of that which has been embroidered and of embroidery, and in every case factual knowledge is meant by it. The reason for this goes back to representatives in the next life; there garments embroidered in various ways are seen, and by these garments truths on the level of factual knowledge are meant.

[2] Truths on the level of factual knowledge differ from those on the level of the understanding in the same way as outward things differ from inward ones, or as the natural level with a person differs from the spiritual. Facts serve the understanding as objects from which it may deduce truths; for the power of understanding is the internal or spiritual man's power of sight, and known facts are its objects in the external or natural man. These facts are meant by 'the work of an embroiderer' whereas that power of understanding is meant by 'the work of a designer', 9598, for designing is a function of the understanding, and embroidering a function of the knowledge and skill employed by the understanding. This explains why the objects within the dwelling-place, which were signs meaning inner realities, were the work of a designer, such as the curtains that formed it, verse 1, and the veil between the holy place and the holy of holies, verse 31. But the objects which were signs meaning outer realities were the work of an embroiderer, such as the screen in place of a tent door, and the screen in place of a gate of the court, Exodus 38:18, and also the girdle, Exodus 39:29, 'the girdle' being what is external linking everything internal, 'the court' being the lowest part of heaven, and 'the tent door' the place where there is an exit from the middle heaven into the lowest.

[3] The fact that 'embroidery' and that which has been 'embroidered' mean factual knowledge belonging to the external or natural man is clear from the following places in the Word: In Ezekiel,

Fine linen with embroidery from Egypt was your sail; violet and purple from the islands of Elishah was your covering. Syria was your merchant by reason of the multitude of your handiworks; [they exchanged for your wares] chrysoprase and purple, and embroidered work, and fine linen. The merchants of Sheba [came] with balls of violet and with embroidered work. Ezekiel 27:7, 16, 24.

This refers to Tyre, by which those in possession of cognitions or knowledge of truth and good are meant, and in the abstract sense those cognitions themselves, 1201. 'Fine linen with embroidery' means truth on the level of factual knowledge, for 'fine linen' means truth from a celestial origin, 5319, 9469, and 'embroidery' is factual knowledge. This also is the reason why it says that it came from Egypt - for 'Egypt' means factual knowledge, 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, 2588, 4749, 4964, 4966, 5700, 5702, 6004, 6015, 6125, 6651, 6679, 6683, 6692, 6750, 7779 (end), 9391 - and also from Syria and from Sheba, since cognitions of truth and good are meant by 'Syria', 1232, 1234, 3051, 3249, 3664, 3680, 4112, and in like manner by 'Sheba', 1171, 3240. Cognitions of truth and good constitute the Church's factual knowledge. Anybody endowed with the ability to think intelligently and weigh things up can see that in these verses from Ezekiel one should not understand embroidery, fine linen, violet, or purple, but that these commodities mean things such as are worthy of mention in the Word, namely spiritual realities that belong to heaven and the Church.

[4] In the same prophet,

All the princes of the sea will step down from upon their thrones, and will cast away their robes and will strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with tremblings. Ezekiel 26:16.

This too refers to Tyre. 'The princes of the sea' are the first and foremost known facts, which are called dogmas, 'princes' meaning things which are first and foremost, see 1482, 2089, 5044, and 'the sea' factual knowledge in general 28, 2850. 'Robes' are external truths, 'embroidered' are truths on the level of factual knowledge, which too are external ones. For the meaning of 'garments' as truths, 2576, 4545, 4763, 5248, 5319, 5954, 6914, 6917, 6918, 9093, 9158, 9212, 9216.

[5] In the same prophet,

I clothed you with embroidered cloth, and shod you with badger; I swathed you in fine linen and covered you with silk. Thus were you adorned with gold and silver; and your garments were fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. But you took your embroidered garments and covered the images, with which you committed whoredom. ¹ Ezekiel 16:10, 13, 18.

This refers to Jerusalem, by which the Church is meant. 'Embroidered garments' stands for truths on the level of factual knowledge. 'Covering the images, with which she committed whoredom' stands for giving strength to falsities, for 'committing whoredom' means perverting truths by bringing them into contact with falsities or with evils. Is there anyone who cannot see that since these verses describe Jerusalem 'fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth' are not used to mean fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth? Yet what they really mean the Christian world does not seek to know, because it supposes that heavenly and spiritual matters in the Word reside in its literal sense; the more internal contents of the Word it calls mystical, but has no interest in them.

[6] In the same prophet,

A great eagle with great wings, with long pinions, full of feathers, ² which had embroidery ... Ezekiel 17:3.

This refers to the house of Israel, which means the spiritual Church; and this Church is called 'an eagle' by virtue of its perception of truth, 3901, 8764, 'which had embroidery' standing for its possession of factual knowledge. In David,

All glorious is the king's daughter within, in her clothing with gold interweavings; in an embroidered [robe] she will be led to the king. Psalms 45:13-14.

'The king's daughter' stands for an affection for truth, 'an embroidered [robe]' for factual knowledge of truth. In the Book of Judges,

Will they not divide the spoil, ... the spoil of colours for Sisera, the spoil of colours of embroidered work, embroiderers' colour - on the necks of the spoil? ³ Judges 5:30.

In this verse, which is part of the Song of Deborah and Barak, 'embroidered [work]' stands for factual knowledge belonging to the natural man.

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9093. 'And divide the silver from it' means that its truth will be dispersed. This is clear from the meaning of 'dividing' as banishing and dispersing, dealt with in 6360, 6361; and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2048, 5658, 6112, 6914, 6917, 7999. The reason why 'dividing' means dispersing is that if things existing in association are divided they are also scattered, as when a person destroys his mind by dividing it. For the human mind consists of two parts existing in association; one part is called the understanding, the other part is called the will. A person who divides these two parts scatters what belongs to each part individually; for one part must receive its life from the other, and therefore when one perishes, so does the other. It is similar when someone divides truth from good, or what amounts to the same thing, faith from charity; when anyone does this he destroys both. In short, all the things which ought to be a single whole perish if they are divided.

[2] This division is meant by the Lord's words in Luke,

No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will prefer the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Luke 16:13.

That is, it is not possible to serve the Lord through belief in Him and at the same time serve the world by loving it, thus to acknowledge truth and at the same time to do evil. Anyone who behaves in this way has his mind divided, as a result of which it is destroyed. From all this it is evident why it is that 'dividing' means dispersing; and the same is clearly the meaning in Matthew also,

The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour he does not know. And he will divide him and assign him his part with the hypocrites. Matthew 24:50-51.

'Dividing' here means separating and removing from forms of good and truths, 4424, thus dispersing them.

[3] In Moses,

Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is hard. ¹ I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:7.

These words occur in Israel's prophetic utterance regarding Simeon and Levi. 'Simeon' and 'Levi' here represent those steeped in faith separated from charity, 6352; and 'Jacob' and 'Israel' represent the external and the internal Church, also the external and the internal man, 4286, 4598, 5973, 6360, 6361. 'Dividing them in Jacob' means banishing them from the external Church, and 'scattering them in Israel' from the internal Church, thus dispersing the Church's forms of good and its truths residing with them.

[4] It is also evident that 'dividing' has this meaning from the words written on the wall when Belshazzar king of Babel, together with his nobles, wives, and concubines, drank wine out of the vessels of gold and of silver that had belonged to the Temple in Jerusalem, Daniel 5:2-4, 25, 28. What was written said, 'Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided,' 'divided' here meaning separated from the kingdom. Those verses show how all things at that time were representative. They describe the profanation of goodness and truth, which is meant by 'Babel'. Profanation is meant by 'Babel', see 1182, 1283, 1295, 1304-1308, 1321, 1322, 1326. Forms of the good of love, also the truths of faith, received from the Lord, are meant by 'the vessels of gold and silver', 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917. Profanation is meant by drinking out of them, and by praising then the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone (as verse 4 says there), which are a string of evils and falsities, 4402 (end), 4544, 7873, 8941. 'The Temple in Jerusalem' from which the vessels had come means in the highest sense the Lord, and in the representative sense His kingdom and Church, 3720. Belshazzar's kingdom when it had been divided was a sign of the dispersion of goodness and truth, and his being killed that very night a sign of deprivation of the life of truth and good, which is damnation. For 'being divided' is being dispersed; 'king' is the truth of good, 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, 4966, 5044, 5068, 6148, the same thing being meant by 'kingdom', 1672, 2547, 4691; 'being killed' means being deprived of the life of truth and good, 3607, 6767, 8902; and 'the night' in which he was killed is a state of evil and falsity, 2353, 7776, 7851, 7870, 7947. From this it is evident that all things there were representative.

[5] It says in David,

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing cast lots. Psalms 22:18.

And in Matthew,

They divided the garments (the Lord's), casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophet. Matthew 27:35.

Also in John,

The soldiers took the garments and made four parts; and the tunic. The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said regarding it Let us not divide it, but cast lots for it, whose it may be - so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. John 19:23-24.

The person who reads these things, knowing nothing about the internal sense of the Word, is unaware of any arcanum that lies concealed within them, when in fact every detail holds a Divine arcanum. The arcanum was that Divine Truths had been dispersed by the Jews. For the Lord was Divine Truth, which is why He is called the Word in John 1:1 and the following verses, 'the Word' being Divine Truth. His garments represented truths in the outward form they take, His tunic truths in their inward form; and the dividing of the garments represented the dispersing of the truths of faith by the Jews. For the meaning of 'garments' as truths in the outward form they take, see 2576, 5248, 5954, 6918, and for that of 'tunic' as truth in its inward form, 4677. Truths in their outward form are truths as they exist in the literal sense of the Word, but truths in their inward form are truths as they exist in the spiritual sense of the Word. 'Dividing the garments into four parts' meant total dispersion, in the same way that dividing does in Zechariah 14:4, and elsewhere. Dividing into two parts - as it says in Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38, regarding the veil of the Temple - has a like meaning. The splitting apart of the rocks also at that time, Matthew 27:51, represented the dispersing of all matters of faith; for 'rock' means the Lord in respect of faith, and therefore means faith received from the Lord, 8581.

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