9140. 'Sending in his beast of burden' means if he does it with little self-awareness. This is clear from the meaning of 'beast of burden' as a bodily desire or appetite. The reason why there is little self-awareness is that when such a desire or appetite reigns in a person he scarcely uses his power of reason and so has little awareness about himself. All beasts, whatever their genus and species, mean affections; gentle and useful beasts mean good affections, while savage and useless beasts mean evil affections, 45, 46, 142, 143, 714-719, 1823, 2180, 2781, 3218, 3519, 5198, 7523, 7872, 9090. When an animal is called 'a beast of burden' it means merely bodily affections, which in themselves possess little reason; for the more that a person's actions spring from the body, the less they do so from reason. This is because the body lives in the world and so is remote from heaven, where true reason resides. Furthermore the word in the original language for a beast of burden is formed from another meaning brutish and stupid, and so having little awareness, as in Isaiah 19:11; in David, Psalms 49:10; 73:22; in Jeremiah 51:17; and elsewhere.

1297. 'And let us burn them thoroughly' means the evils that stem from self-love. This is clear from the meaning of 'to burn, a burning, fire, sulphur, and bitumen' in the Word, where they have reference to evil desires, chiefly to those that belong to self-love, as in Isaiah,

Our holy house, and our splendour, where our fathers praised You, has been made into a blaze of fire, and all our pleasant places have been made into a waste. Isaiah 64:11.

In the same prophet,

Conceive chaff, bring forth stubble. Your wind is a fire that will consume you. Thus the peoples will be burnings of lime; [like] thorns cut down they will be burned in the fire. Isaiah 33:11-12.

And there are many other examples besides these. 'Burning' and 'fire' have reference to evil desires because they possess similar characteristics.