In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

9639. 'Acting in combination with each other' means the consequent joining together of the Lord with those who are in that heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'acting in combination', when it refers to the power meant by 'the hands', as a joining together effected through truth from good, thus a joining involving those in that heaven. For all in heaven are called 'powers', indeed they are powers by virtue of being recipients of Divine Truth that comes from the Lord. This also explains why God's truths are meant in the Word by 'angels', 8192. Divine Good emanating from the Lord is what joins together all who are in heaven; for that which reigns universally in Divine Truths is Divine Good, and what reigns universally joins people together. This joining together is what the combined action of the hands of a board, of each with the other, means.