Stones in the Bible in general represent truths, or things we know concerning the Lord and what He wants from us and for us in life. This is why the people of Israel built altars of stone, and is also why stoning was a principal form of capital punishment (using truth to destroy falsity, or in the negative sense using falsity to destroy truth). It is also why precious stones are described in such detail on Aaron's breastplate and ephod, and also in the New Jerusalem in Revelation; precious stones represent true ideas directly from the Lord with the various colors showing various forms of love. Stones are not alone in representing truth, of course -- it sometimes seems that almost everything in the Bible represents either true ideas or desires for good. But that makes sense, since our thoughts and our desires together are everything we are in life, and the interplay between them is what life is all about. The many ways they are represented in the Bible reflect the incredible variety in our feelings and thoughts, though we can only distantly understand how those representations work. In the case of stones, in their weight, strength and permanence they tend to represent true ideas that come from a desire for good, the understanding we can have if we are truly good and loving -- and in the highest sense the exalted ideas that come from the Lord's love. Those ideas are ones that are not easily moved or changed, and make wonderful foundations for the things we want to build in our spiritual lives.

6592. 'And you shall cause my bones to go up from here' means that there will be a representative of the Church but not a Church which also exists on an internal level. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the internal of the Church, dealt with above in 6587; and since he represents the internal of the Church, that which is the most external or the outermost area of the Church, thus that which forms the representative part of it, is meant by his 'bones'. For the representative acts which existed in the Ancient Church and which were also established among the descendants of Jacob constituted outermost forms within the Church; but the things those acts meant and represented were the inner realities of the Church. These - the inner realities - are meant by 'the flesh' which holds the spirit within it; but the outer forms are meant by 'the bones'. From this one may see what the Church is like when it is concerned solely with outer forms, without their inner realities, namely like the bones forming the framework of a person's body without the flesh. As regards the fact that no Church, only a representative of the Church existed among the Israelite and Jewish people, see 4281, 4288, 4307, 4500, 4680, 4844, 4847, 4903, 6704; and a representative of the Church was not established among them until they had been completely vastated internally, or else they would have rendered holy things profane, 4289.