9842. 'And engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel' means on which the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom - the entire essential nature of them - have been imprinted. This is clear from the meaning of 'engraving on stones' as imprinting on the memory, dealt with immediately above in 9841; from the meaning of 'the names' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 6674; and from the representation of 'the sons of Israel' as all the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom. 'The sons of Israel' here is used to denote the twelve tribes, for it was these - the names of the tribes - that were engraved on those stones, and the twelve tribes mean all the truths and forms of good in their entirety, 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6335, 6337. And since these are what constitute the Church or heaven, the Church and the Lord's spiritual kingdom are meant by 'the sons of Israel', 4286, 6426, 6637, 7836, 7891, 7996, 7997, 9340. From all this it is evident that 'you shall engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel' means an imprinting on the memory of the entire essential nature of the truths and forms of good that belong to the spiritual kingdom, or an imprinting of the truths and forms of good of that kingdom as to their entire essential nature.

6337. 'And I will show you what will happen to you at the end of days' means the nature of the Church's state within the order in which they were arranged at that time. This is clear from the meaning of 'showing what will happen' as communicating and foretelling; and from the meaning of 'the end of days' as the final phase of the state in which they exist together - 'days' being states, 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, and 'the end' the final phase, so that 'the end of days' is the final phase of a state, that is to say, of the state in which truths and forms of good in general exist together when arranged in their proper order. The reason why it is the Church's state which is meant is that the truths and forms of good represented by 'Jacob and his sons' are what constitute the Church, on account of which 'Jacob' represents the Church, 4286, 4439, 4514, 4520, 4680, 4772, 5536, 5540, and so also 'his sons', 5403, 5419, 5427, 5458, 5512. And the reason why the nature of that state is meant is that the way the Church's truths and forms of good are represented depends on the order in which Jacob's sons or the tribes are mentioned in the Word, see 3862, 3926, 3939. For its nature is different if Reuben's name comes first from what it is if Judah's comes first. When Reuben is first the nature of the state is such that it starts with faith; but when Judah is first it is such that it starts with love; and the nature of it is different again when it starts with something other than faith or love. For variation in the nature of the state is also indicated by the order in which the rest are named after those two.

[2] The variations that are produced in this way are incalculable, indeed infinite, especially so when the truths and forms of good in general that are meant by 'the twelve tribes' also take on specific variations, countless ones for each - for then each truth and form of good in general assumes a different appearance - and even more especially so when those specific truths or forms of good take on countless individual variations, and so on. The infinite variations produced in this way may be illustrated by very many things that exist in the natural world. From all this one may now see that the twelve tribes have a different meaning when their names occur in the Word in one order from when they do so in another. Thus in this chapter they carry a meaning different from that seen elsewhere.