5489. 'Each man's in his own sack' means wherever a receptacle exists in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'a sack' as a receptacle, dealt with below; and this exists in the natural because truths and factual knowledge in the natural are the subject. The reason 'a sack' has the specific meaning here of factual knowledge is that just as a sack is a receptacle for grain, so is factual knowledge a receptacle for good, in this case for good that is the product of truth, as above in 5487. Few people know that factual knowledge is a receptacle for good because few stop to reflect on such matters. Yet they can know it from the following considerations: When facts enter the memory some affection is always instrumental in their introduction there. Facts that are not introduced by means of some affection do not remain but slip away. The reason for this is that life is present within an affection but not within factual knowledge except through an affection. From this it is evident that linked to factual knowledge there are always those kinds of impulses that belong to an affection, or what amounts to the same, that are the expressions of some love or other. Consequently it has some form of good linked to it, for every expression of love is called a form of good, whether it is real good or what is mistakenly thought to be such. Factual knowledge together with such forms of good therefore constitute a kind of marriage. This being so, when that good is stimulated, so instantly is the factual knowledge to which it is linked; and conversely, when facts are called to mind, the good to which they are linked comes forth. Anyone can learn of this, if he so pleases, from what goes on within himself.

[2] From this one may now conclude that, among unregenerate persons who have cast aside the good of charity, facts existing as truths known to the Church have the kinds of impulses expressing self-love and love of the world attached to them. Thus attached to those facts there are forms of evil which, because of the delight these hold within them, are called forms of good by those unregenerate persons, who also employ wrong interpretations to present them as such. Those facts take on an attractive appearance, when self-love and love of the world reign throughout, assuming it in the degree in which these are reigning. But among regenerate persons facts existing as truths known to the Church have the kinds of impulses that belong to love towards the neighbour and love to God, thus forms of genuine good, attached to them. These forms of good are placed by the Lord within the truths known to the Church that are present with all undergoing regeneration. Therefore when the Lord inspires these people with a zeal for what is good, those truths come forth at the same time in their own proper order; and when He inspires a zeal for truth, that good is present and sets it ablaze. From all this one may see the situation so far as factual knowledge and truths are concerned - that they are the receptacles for good.

3079. 'And her pitcher was on her shoulder' means vessels that receive truth, and a total effort to uphold that truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a pitcher' as factual knowledge, and so a receptacle of truth, dealt with in 3068, and from the meaning of 'shoulder' as all power, and so total effort, dealt with in 1085. 'Pitchers' or water-pots, and also vessels generally, mean in the internal sense things that serve in the place of a receptacle, as facts and cognitions do in relation to truths, and as truths themselves do in relation to good. This becomes clear from many places in the Word. The temple and the altar vessels had no other meaning, and having that meaning they were also sacred. For no other reason were they sacred. That was why - when Belshazzar, along with his nobles and his wives, drank wine out of the vessels of gold and silver which Nebuchadnezzar his father had brought from the Temple in Jerusalem, and they praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone - writing appeared on the wall of his palace, Daniel 5:2 and following verses. 'The vessels of gold and silver' stands for cognitions of good and truth which were rendered profane; for 'the Chaldeans' means those who possess cognitions but have rendered them profane through the falsities within those cognitions, 1368, so that cognitions serve them for worshipping 'the gods of gold and silver' (Belshazzar being called 'king of the Chaldeans' in verse 30 of that same chapter).

[2] That 'vessels' means the external containers of spiritual things is also evident from other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

Even as the children of Israel bring their gift in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. Isaiah 66:20.

This refers to the Lord's kingdom. 'A gift in a clean vessel' is a representative of the external man in relation to the internal. The one who brings the gift is the internal man, 'the clean vessel' a compatible external man, and so the things present in the external man, which are facts, cognitions, and matters of doctrine. In Jeremiah,

The cry of Jerusalem went up, and the nobles sent their inferiors to the waters; they came to the pits, they found no water, they returned with their vessels empty, they were ashamed. Jeremiah 14:2-3.

'Empty vessels' stands for cognitions with no truth in them, and also truths with no good in them. In the same prophet,

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel has devoured me, he has troubled me, he has made me an empty vessel. Jeremiah 51:34.

'An empty vessel' stands in like manner for empty cognitions - 'Babel' being one who lays waste, see 1327 (end). In Moses,

Like valleys that are planted, like gardens beside a river. Waters will flow from buckets, and his seed will be towards many waters. Numbers 24:6-7.

These verses belong to Balaam's oracle concerning Jacob and Israel. 'Waters will flow from buckets' stands for truths flowing from cognitions. In the parable about the ten virgins it is said that five of them took oil in their vessels together with their lamps, but that the foolish did not, Matthew 25:4. 'Virgins' means affections; 'the wise took oil in their vessels' means that they took good within truths, and so charity within faith. 'Oil' is good, see 886; 'lamps' stands for love.