10133. 'A continual [offering]' means within all Divine worship. This is clear from the meaning of 'continual', when it refers to such things as belong to Divine worship, as all and within all. For the subject is purification from evils and falsities by means of the good of innocence, this good being meant by 'lambs' and purification from evils and consequent falsities by a burnt offering of them. This is called 'continual' because it must be present in all Divine worship. Therefore also the offering was presented twice each day, in the morning and in the evening; and offerings made morning and evening served in general to represent all worship and what must be present within all worship. The good of innocence must be in all good, and consequently in all truth, if they are to be goodness and truth that have life from the Divine within them, and so it must be within all worship. For all worship, to be worship, must spring from the good of love and from the truths of faith.

All of the Church's and of heaven's good has innocence within it, and without that innocence good is not good, nor therefore is worship worship, see 2736, 2780, 6013, 7840, 7887, 9262.

What innocence is, 3994, 4001, 4797, 5236, 6107, 6765, 7902, 9262, 9936, and the places referred to in 10021 (end).

[2] 'Continual' means all and within all - that is to say, the all of worship, and within all worship - because it is a term that has a temporal connotation and in heaven, where the Word is understood not in the natural but in the spiritual sense, people have no notions of time. Instead of periods of time they perceive the kinds of things that are states. By 'continual' at this point therefore they perceive a perpetual state within worship, thus the all of worship and within all worship. The same applies to all other terms in the Word which have temporal connotations, such as yesterday, today, tomorrow, two days, three days, daily, a week, a month, a year, also times of day and seasons of the year - morning, midday, evening, night, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Therefore if the spiritual sense of the Word is to be understood, any idea of a period of time acquired from its natural sense, any idea of a place as well, indeed any idea of an actual person must be set aside, and states of things must be conceived of instead. From this it may be seen how perfect the Word is in its internal sense, and so how perfect is the perception of it by the angels in heaven, consequently how much more excellent angels' wisdom and understanding are than the understanding and wisdom of people in the world, who think with solely natural vision focused on the completely finite things of this world and planet. Regarding periods of time in heaven, that they are states, see 1274, 1382, 2625, 2788, 2837, 3254, 3356, 3404, 3827, 4814, 4882, 4901, 4916, 6110, 7218, 7381, 8070; and regarding what states are, 4850.

[3] From all this it is evident what the continual burnt offering of lambs means, and so what 'continual' and 'continually' mean elsewhere, as in the commands that 'the fire shall burn continually on the altar', Leviticus 6:13, and that 'the continual bread shall be on the table', Numbers 4:7. 'The fire' there and 'the bread' mean the good of love received from the Lord and offered back to Him. For 'the fire', that it has this meaning, see 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324, 7852, 10055; and also for 'the bread', 2165, 2177, 3478, 3735, 3813, 4211, 4217, 4735, 4976, 9323, 9545. In those places as well 'continual' means in addition that this good must be present in all worship; and the fact that the same good is the source from which the truth of faith must shine, as if from its fire, is meant by the decree that they were to cause a lamp to go up ¹ continually, Exodus 27:20, 'a lamp' being the truth and good of faith, see 9548, 9783.

脚注:

3803. 'Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother' means the kinship of the good represented by 'Jacob' and of the good represented by 'Laban'. This is clear from the meaning of 'telling' as making known; from the representation of 'Jacob' as good, dealt with already; from the representation of 'Rachel', to whom it was made known, as the affection for interior truth, dealt with in 3793; from the meaning of 'brother', who in this place is Jacob, as good, dealt with in 367, 2360, 3303, 3459; and from the meaning of 'father', who in this place is Laban, as good also, dealt with in 3703. From these meanings and from the train of thought it is evident that 'Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother' means the kinship of the good meant by 'Jacob' and of the good meant by 'Laban'. To explain the actual kinship however and so the joining together of the two through the affection for interior truth meant by 'Rachel' would only throw the matter into obscurity, for few know what the good of the natural is and that this is distinct and separate from the good of the rational. Neither do they know what a parallel good springing from a common stock is, nor also what the affection for interior truth is. Anyone who has not by finding out for himself gathered some idea of these matters gains merely a superficial idea, if any at all, from a description of them; for a person takes in only as much of a description given by others as fits in with ideas of his own or else which he acquires by coming to see the thing in himself. All else passes him by. It is enough if one knows that countless kinships of good and truth exist, and that heavenly communities exist in accordance with those kinships, 685, 917, 2739, 3612.

[2] The reason why Jacob calls himself Laban's brother when he was in fact his sister's son is that by virtue of good all are brothers. This also is why Laban in turn calls Jacob 'brother' in verse 15. For it is good that constitutes blood-relationship and which effects any joining together, since good is an attribute of love, and love is a spiritual joining together. This also was the reason why in the ancient Churches all who were governed by good were called brothers. The same happened in the Jewish Church, but because that Church despised everybody else and imagined that they alone were the elect it spoke only of those who had been born Jews as brothers. The rest it called companions or foreigners. The primitive Christian Church also referred to as brothers all who were governed by good, but later on it confined the term to those inside its own group. But the name brother disappeared from among Christians when good did so. And when truth took the place of good, or faith the place of charity, none was able any longer to call another brother by virtue of good, only neighbour. This is also a feature of the doctrine of faith when devoid of the life of charity, in that it seems to be beneath them to exist as a brotherhood when this includes any of lower rank than themselves. For being brothers in their case does not have its origin in the Lord, and therefore in good, but in themselves, and therefore in position and gain.

[3803a] 'And that he was Rebekah's son' means the link between these kindred varieties of good. This becomes clear without explanation, for Rebekah, who was Jacob's mother and Laban's sister, was the one in whom the link existed.