300. As regards the first arcanum, that 'Jehovah God' is used to mean the Lord and at the same time heaven, it should be recognized that in the Word, always for some hidden reason, the Lord is sometimes called simply Jehovah, sometimes Jehovah God, sometimes Jehovah and God interchangeably, sometimes the Lord Jehovah, sometimes the God of Israel, and sometimes simply God. In Genesis 1, for example, where again an utterance is made in the plural, 'Let Us make man in Our image', God is the only name used. Not until the next chapter, where the celestial man is the subject, is He called Jehovah God-Jehovah, because He alone has Being and is Living, and so from His essence; God, because of His ability to accomplish all things, and so from His power, as is clear in the Word where the two names are used separately, Isaiah 49:4-5; 55:7; Psalms 18:2, 28, 30-31; Psalms 38:15. Consequently any angel or spirit who spoke to a person, or who people thought had the ability to accomplish something, they called God, as is clear in David,

God stands in the assembly of God, in the midst of the Gods will He judge. Psalms 82:1.

And elsewhere in David,

Who in the sky will be compared to Jehovah? Who will be likened to Jehovah among the sons of gods? Psalms 89:6.

And elsewhere in the same,

Confess the God of Gods; confess the Lord of lords. Psalms 136:2-3

It is from power that even men are called 'gods', as in Psalms 82:6; John 10:34-35. And Moses is spoken of as 'a god to Pharaoh', Exodus 7:1. And this also is why [in Hebrew] the word for God, Elohim, is plural. But because angels have no power whatsoever from themselves, as they themselves also confess, but from the Lord only, and as there is but one God, Jehovah God is therefore used in the Word to mean the Lord alone. Yet when anything is accomplished through the ministry of angels He is spoken of in the plural, as in Genesis 1. In the present chapter too, since a celestial man, as man, did not bear comparison with the Lord, but with angels, it is therefore said that 'the man has become as one of Us in knowing good and evil', that is, become someone wise and having intelligence.

9874. 'Enclosed in gold shall they be in their settings' means that all of them in general and each in particular must emanate from the good belonging to the love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'gold' as the good of love, dealt with in 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917, 8932, 9490, 9510; and from the meaning of 'being enclosed in it in their settings' as emanating from that good. For every single stone was surrounded by and so enclosed in gold, and since 'gold' means the good of love what is enclosed means that which exists or emanates from that good. The like is meant in verse 11 of the present chapter by the sockets of gold which surrounded the two shoham stones placed on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod.

[2] The implications of all this are that the breastplate and its twelve stones represented every good and truth in the heavens and so represented all heaven, as shown above. Moreover not only the heavens but also every community in the heavens, indeed each angel within a community, is surrounded by a Divine sphere, which consists of Divine Good and Truth emanating from the Lord, see where this is dealt with in 9490-9492, 9498, 9499, 9534. And since the good and truth of this sphere is received by the angels, so also every single thing present with them emanates from there; for each angel is heaven in the smallest form it takes. The actual good emanating from the Lord is what the gold around the stones and enclosing them represents.

[3] The truth that this good is the good of love that is received from the Lord and shown to the Lord may be recognized from the consideration that all good belongs to love, for what a person loves he calls good and also feels to be such. From this it is evident that heavenly good is the good of love to the Lord, for this love is what joins angel and man to the Lord; through this love they are brought to Him and enjoy all the good of heaven. It is well known in the Church that this good comes from the Lord, for the teaching of the Church is that all good originates in God and none at all in oneself. From this it is evident that the good of love shown to the Lord must come from the Lord, and that good from any other source is not good.