9262. 'And do not kill the innocent and the righteous' means detesting the destruction of good, interior and exterior. This is clear from the meaning of 'the innocent' as a person governed by interior good, and so in the abstract sense as interior good, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'the righteous' as a person governed by exterior good, and in the abstract sense as exterior good, since 'righteous' has reference to the good of love towards the neighbour, but 'innocent' to the good of love to the Lord - the good of love towards the neighbour being exterior good, and the good of love to the Lord being interior good; and from the meaning of 'killing' as destroying. The fact that 'righteous' means the good of love towards the neighbour will also be seen below. But the reason why 'the innocent' means the good of love to the Lord is that people endowed with innocence are those who love the Lord; for innocence consists in the acknowledgement in a person's heart that left to himself he intends nothing but evil and perceives nothing but falsity, and that all good of love and all truth of faith come from the Lord alone. No others can acknowledge these things in their heart except those who have been joined to the Lord in love. Such people inhabit the inmost heaven, which is accordingly called the heaven of innocence. Therefore the good that is theirs is interior good; for the Divine Good of Love coming from the Lord is that which inhabitants of the heaven of innocence receive. Therefore also they appear naked and also look like young children. So it is that innocence is represented by nakedness and also by early childhood. For its representation by nakedness, see 165, 213, 214, 8375; and by early childhood, 430, 1616, 2280, 2305, 2306, 3183, 3494, 4563, 4797, 5608 (end).

[2] From all that has just been stated regarding innocence it may be seen that what is Divine and the Lord's cannot be received except within innocence. This being so, good is not good unless there is innocence within it, 2526, 2780, 3994, 6765, 7840, 7887, that is, unless there is the acknowledgement that from the self nothing but evil and falsity arises and that from the Lord comes all goodness and truth. Believing the former about the self, and believing the latter about the Lord and also desiring it to be so, are what constitutes innocence. Therefore the good of innocence is God's goodness itself coming from the Lord and residing with a person. So it is that 'the innocent' means a person governed by interior good and in the abstract sense means interior good.

[3] Because 'the innocent' or 'innocence' means Divine Good coming from the Lord, shedding innocent blood was a thoroughly atrocious crime. And when it had been committed the whole land was under damnation until the crime had been expiated, as becomes clear from the process of investigation and absolution from guilt if someone had been found slain in the land. That process is spoken of in Moses as follows,

When one is found slain in the land, lying in the field, and it is not known who smote him, then your elders and your judges shall come out and they shall measure [the distance] to the cities which are around the one slain. It shall be however, that in the city nearest to the one slain the elders of this city shall take an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, which has not pulled in the yoke; and the elders of this city shall bring the heifer down to a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown, and there they shall break the heifer's neck in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, and all the elders of this city standing by the one slain. They shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck has been broken in the valley; and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it; expiate Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Jehovah, and do not set innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel. In this way the blood will be expiated for them. But you shall put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, if you do what is right in the eyes of Jehovah. Deuteronomy 21:1-10.

Anyone can see that this process of investigation and absolution from guilt when innocent blood had been shed in the land holds within it the arcana of heaven, of which people cannot have any knowledge at all unless they know what is meant by 'one slain, [lying] in the field', by 'an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, and which has not pulled in the yoke', by 'a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown', by 'breaking the neck of the heifer in the valley', by 'washing hands over the heifer', and by all the other details of the process. Unless everything laid down had meant those arcana it would have been totally unsuitable for the Word that has been dictated by God and inspired in every word and part of a letter. For without its deeper meaning such a process would have been an observance which had nothing holy about it, indeed which had scarcely any value.

[4] But exactly which arcana lie within it is nevertheless evident from the internal sense, that is, if it is known that 'one slain in the land, lying in the field' means truth and good wiped out in the Church where good exists; that 'the city nearest to the one slain' means the truth taught by the Church whose good has been wiped out; that 'an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, and which has not pulled in the yoke' means the good of the external or natural man, who has not as yet, through enslavement to evil desires, drawn falsities into his faith and evils into his life; that 'a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown' means the natural mind that is not cultivated with truths or forms of the good of faith owing to lack of knowledge; that 'breaking its neck in the valley' means purification, on account of absence of blame because it was due to lack of knowledge; and that 'washing the hand' means being absolved from that atrocious crime. Once these things are known it is evident that 'shedding innocent blood' means wiping out Divine Truth and Good that come from the Lord, thus the Lord Himself as He exists with a member of the Church.

[5] It should be recognized that this entire process represented in heaven the kind of crime that had no blame attached to the commission of it because it was due to ignorance that had innocence within it and was therefore as something not evil. Each detail within that process, even the smallest, represented some essential aspect of the reality portrayed by the whole. But which aspect each one represented is clear from the internal sense.

'One who has been slain' is truth and good that have been wiped out, see 4503.

'The land' is the Church, 662, 1066, 1067, 1262, 1413, 1607, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928, 3355, 4447, 4535, 5577, 8011, 8732.

'The field' is the Church in respect of good, thus the Church's good, 2971, 3310, 3766, 4982, 7502, 7571, 9139.

'The city' is teachings presenting the truth, thus the truth taught by the Church, 402, 2268, 2449, 2712, 2943, 3216, 4492, 4493.

'Ox' is the good of the external or natural man, 2180, 2566, 2781, 9134, so that 'a heifer' is good in its infancy, 1824, 1825.

[6] 'No work had been done by it, and it had not pulled in the yoke', it is evident, means that up to then it had not, owing to lack of knowledge, served falsities and evils; for 'working' and 'pulling in the yoke' mean serving.

'A valley' is the lower mind, which is called the natural mind, 3417, 4715; 'a barren valley' is that mind when devoid of truths and forms of good, 3908; so that 'a valley which is neither tilled nor sown' is the natural mind not yet cultivated with truths and forms of good, thus which is still lacking in knowledge, 'the seed with which it is sown' being the truth of faith, 1025, 1447, 1610, 1940, 2848, 3038, 3373, 3671, 6158.

'Breaking the neck' is expiation, because the slaughter of various beasts, like the offering of sacrifice, meant expiation.

'Washing the hand' means purification from falsities and evils, 3147; here therefore it means purification from that atrocious crime; for 'shedding blood' in general means violence done to goodness and truth, 9127, so that 'shedding innocent blood' means wiping out what is Divine residing with a person and comes from the Lord, thus the Lord Himself residing with that person; for truth and good residing with a person are the Lord Himself since they come from Him.

[7] The like is meant by 'shedding innocent blood' in Deuteronomy 19:10; 27:25; Isaiah 59:3, 7; Jeremiah 2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; Joel 3:19; Psalms 94:21. 'One who is innocent' means in the proximate sense someone who is blameless and also free from evil, to which people also bore witness in former times by washing their hands, Psalms 26:6; 73:13; Matthew 27:24; John 18:38; 19:4. The reason for this is that good which comes from the Lord and resides with a person is blameless and free from evil; this good is the good of innocence in the internal sense, as has been shown. But good that is blameless and free from evil as it exists in the external man, which is exterior good, is called 'righteous', as also in David,

The throne of perdition will not be linked to You - those who gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous and condemn innocent blood. Psalms 94:20-21.

1013. 'For in the image of God He made man' means charity, which is the image of God. This follows as a consequence of what is said above. Immediately above the subject was charity, meant by 'blood'. And the command not to destroy it was meant by the statement that men should not shed blood. The statement that comes next, 'in the image of God He made man', makes it clear that charity is the image of God. What the image of God is, scarcely anybody knows nowadays. People say that the image of God was lost in the first man whom they call Adam; and that in him it was an image of God which, they assert, possessed a certain perfection with which they are not acquainted. Perfection there was indeed, for Adam or Man is used to mean the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial man and had perception such as no subsequent Church was to have. For this reason it was also the likeness of the Lord. The likeness of the Lord means love to Him.

[2] Afterwards in the process of time this Church perished, at which point the Lord created a new one, which was not a celestial Church but a spiritual. This Church was not a likeness but an image of the Lord. An image means spiritual love, that is, love towards the neighbour, which is charity, as also shown already in 50, 51. The fact that this Church was an image of the Lord by virtue of spiritual love, or charity, is clear from the present verse, while the fact that charity itself is the image of the Lord is clear from the consideration that it is said 'for in the image of God He made man', that is to say, charity itself made him. That charity is the image of God is absolutely clear from what is the very essence of love or charity. Nothing but love and charity can make anyone into a likeness or into an image. The essence of love and charity is to make two people so to speak into one. When one person loves another as himself, and more than himself, he sees the other in himself, and himself in the other. This anyone can appreciate if only he will direct his attention to what love is, or to persons who love one another mutually. The will of the one is that of the other; they are as it were inwardly joined together, and are separate from each other in body only.

[3] Love to the Lord makes man one with the Lord, that is, makes a likeness; charity or love towards the neighbour also makes him one with Him, but makes an image. An image is not a likeness but that which approaches a likeness. This oneness that arises from love the Lord Himself describes in John,

I pray that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. John 17:21-23.

This oneness is that mystical union which some people have in mind, a union which is achieved through love alone. In the same gospel,

Because I live you will live also; in that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. If a man loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. John 14:19-21, 27.

From these quotations it is clear that love is what joins together and that the Lord has His home with the person who loves Him and also with him who loves the neighbour, for to love the neighbour is to love the Lord.

[4] This union which makes a likeness and an image cannot be seen very easily in the human race; but it can be seen in heaven where all angels are so to speak one by virtue of their mutual love. Each community, which consists of very many angels, constitutes as it were one person. And all the communities together, that is, the whole of heaven, constitute one human being, also called the Grand Man, see 457, 550. The whole of heaven is a likeness of the Lord, for the Lord is the All in all of those who are there. Each community is a likeness too, and so is each angel. Celestial angels are likenesses, spiritual angels are images. Heaven therefore consists of as many likenesses of the Lord as there are angels, and this is achieved solely by means of mutual love which entails one loving another more than himself, see 548, 549. For the situation is this: For heaven in general, or heaven as a whole, to be a likeness, its parts - which are the individual angels - must be likenesses, or images that approach likenesses. For unless the general whole consists of parts so to speak like itself, it is not something general making one. From these things as from the basic idea, one may see what makes a likeness or an image of God, namely love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. In consequence every regenerate spiritual person is an image of the Lord by virtue of love or charity, which are from the Lord alone. And whoever is governed by charity from the Lord is in a state of perfection. This perfection will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on.