4803. A matter wholly unknown in the world and worthy of mention is this: The states in which good spirits and angels live undergo constant change and perfection. In this way they are conveyed to the more internal parts of the province in which they dwell, and so into more excellent functions. For in heaven purification takes place constantly, which is so to speak a new creation. Yet the situation is that no angel to all eternity can possibly attain complete perfection. The Lord alone is the perfect One, He being the root and the source of all perfection. Those who correspond to the mouth constantly wish to be speaking, for speaking gives them utmost pleasure. While undergoing perfection they are restricted to speaking nothing but that which is beneficial to companions, the community, heaven, and the Lord. The delight they take in speaking in that way grows in the measure that the desire to regard themselves in what they speak and to strive after wisdom from what is properly their own passes away from them.

9516. 'And their faces of a man towards his brother' means truth and good joined together. This is clear from the meaning of 'the face' as the interiors, at this point looking towards and being joined to, for when two are looking each towards the other they join themselves together on the level of interiors (interiors being meant by 'the face', 1999, 2434, 3527, 3573, 4066, 4796-4805, 5102, 5165, 5168, 5695, 9306); and from the meaning of 'man towards brother' as mutually, dealt with in 4725, so that truth joined to good is meant. For 'man' means truth, 3134, 3309, 3459, 4725, 7716, 9007, and 'brother' good, 367, 2360, 3303, 3803, 3815, 4121, 4191, 5409, 5686, 5692, 6756.

1430. 'When he went out of Haran' means an obscure state which the Lord was experiencing like that of man's childhood. This becomes clear from the meaning of Haran in the previous chapter, the place to which Terah came first together with Abram, and where Terah, Abram's father, died, 10:31-32, and also from references further on to Jacob's going to Haran where Laban lived, Genesis 27:43; 28:10; 29:4. Haran was a region where external worship prevailed, which in fact in the case of Terah, Abram, and Laban, was idolatrous worship. But the internal sense does not carry the meaning which is present in the external sense, only the meaning that a certain obscurity existed. As one passes from the external sense into the internal the idea of idolatry does not remain but is completely removed. It is similar to when the idea of holy love is gained from 'a mountain', see 795 - as one passes from the external sense into the internal sense the idea of a mountain first of all perishes, but the idea of height remains; and by height holiness is represented. The same applies to everything else in the external sense and its meaning in the internal sense.