The Bible

 

Numbers 1:44

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44 These are those that were numbered, which Moses and Aaron numbered, and the princes of Israel, being twelve men: each one was for the house of his fathers.

Commentary

 

Explanation of Numbers 1:44

By Henry MacLagan

Verse 44. And all these involve the particular truths of the church, which are ordinated and arranged by Divine Truth and Divine Good, during man's co-operation, in the process of regeneration; and by means of primary truths, each grounded in its own good.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #418

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418. Again, the immensity of the heaven of the Lord is confirmed in this, that heaven in its entire complex resembles one Man, and also corresponds to all and each of the things with man, and that this correspondence can never be filled, since it is a correspondence not only with each of the members, organs, and viscera of the body in general, but also with all and each of the little viscera and little organs contained in these in every minutest particular, and even with each vessel and fibre; and not only with these but also with the organic substances that receive interiorly the influx of heaven, from which come man's interior activities that are serviceable to the operations of his mind, since everything that comes into existence interiorly in man does so in forms which are substances, for anything that does not exist in a substance as its subject is nothing. There is a correspondence of all these things with heaven, as can be confirmed from the section treating of the correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man (87-102). This correspondence can never be filled because the more numerous the angelic associations are that correspond to a single member, the more perfect heaven becomes. For every perfection in the heavens increases with increase of number. The reason is that all there have one end in view, and look with one accord to that end. That end is the common good; and when it reigns, there is, from the common good, good to each individual, and from the good of each individual, there is good to the whole community. This comes about because the Lord turns all in heaven to Himself (see above, 123), and thereby makes it possible for them to be one in Himself. That the unanimity and concord of many, especially from such an origin and held together by such a bond, produces perfection, everyone with a reason at all enlightened can see clearly.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.