6640. 'Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Cad and Asher' means the whole process from start to finish, that is to say, of the establishment of the Church, which is the subject in what follows next. For the twelve sons of Jacob, and the tribes named after them too, mean all aspects of goodness and truth, that is, all aspects of love and faith in their entirety, see 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6335. Yet these meanings vary according to the order in which the names are mentioned, 3862, 3926, 3939, 4603 and following paragraphs. The variations are therefore countless and involve every single thing that constitutes the Church and the Lord's kingdom, 6737. But what the specific meaning is when the names occur in the present or any other order nobody knows but the Lord alone. Nor does anyone in heaven know unless the Lord makes it known; in heaven the truths and forms of good that are meant are presented visually by means of lights, together with a perception of what the lights mean.

[2] The twelve tribes represented the Lord's kingdom and everything there, and therefore in order that those lights might also be represented, and thereby all the Church's truths and forms of good, twelve precious stones were set ¹ in gold in their proper order, one stone for each tribe. This was called the breastplate and was attached to Aaron's ephod; and they received answers from it by means of the varying flashes of light, which were accompanied either by audible words or by inner perception. From this too it may be recognized that the twelve tribes of Israel mean all the truths and forms of good, in their entirety, of the Lord's kingdom and the Church, and that the meanings vary, depending on the order in which they are mentioned. Here they are mentioned in a different order from that in which they were born, as is evident from the fact that Issachar and Zebulun are mentioned before Dan and Naphtali, though the latter were born before the former. Benjamin too is mentioned before Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher, and yet he was born last; and Gad and Asher are mentioned last of all. Something similar is evident in other places in the Word where the names occur in further variations of order.

Mga talababa:

4603. 'The sons of Jacob were twelve' means a state in which all things were now present in the Divine Natural. This is clear from the representation of 'Jacob' as the Divine Natural, often dealt with already; and from the meaning of 'twelve' as all, and when used in reference to the sons of Jacob, or to the tribes named after these, as all aspects of truth and good, dealt with in 2089, 2129, 2130, 3272, 3858, 3913, 3939. The subject so far has been the way in which the Lord made his Natural within Him Divine, for 'Jacob' has represented the Natural; but now the subject becomes the joining of the Divine Natural to the Rational. This joining together is represented by Jacob's coming to Isaac, for 'Isaac' represents the Lord's Divine Rational. This explains why all the sons of Jacob are listed once again, since every aspect of truth and good had to be present within the Natural before it could be fully joined to the Rational. The reason for this particular listing of them is the service which the natural renders the rational as the receptacle for it. But one should recognize that Jacob's sons are now mentioned in a different order from before; the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah - Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher - are mentioned last, though in actual fact these were born before Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. The reason for this difference is that at this point the subject is the order in which truths and goods exist within the Natural when this has been made Divine, for it is the state belonging to the subject under discussion that determines the order in which their names appear, see 3862, 3926, 3939.