1299. 'They had bitumen for clay' means that they had evil springing from evil desire in place of good. This is clear from the meaning in the Word of 'bitumen' and of 'clay'. Since the subject here is the building of the tower of Babel, the materials mentioned are such as are used in building. Bitumen is mentioned because of its sulphurous and combustible qualities, which in the Word mean evil desires, chiefly those that belong to self-love. Here 'bitumen' means the evils springing from evil desires, as well as the resulting falsities, as these too are the evils from which the tower described below was constructed. That such things are meant is clear in Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah's vengeance - her streams will be turned into pitch, and her dust into sulphur; and her land will become burning pitch. Isaiah 34:8-9.

'Pitch' and 'sulphur' stand for falsities and evils that spring from evil desires. And there are further examples besides these.

114. The truth of faith was also meant and represented in the Word precious stones, for example, those in the breast plate of judgement, and upon the shoulder-pieces of Aaron's ephod. in the breastplate, the gold, blue, purple, double-dyed scarlet, and fine-twined linen represented matters of love, while the precious stones represented matters of faith deriving from love, as did the two stones of remembrance on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod which were made from shoham encompassed with settings of gold, Exodus 28:9-22. The same point, that the truth of faith is meant and represented by precious stones, is plainly stated in Ezekiel when the subject is the person who possesses the heavenly riches of wisdom and intelligence,

Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, you were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering ruby, topaz, diamond, tarshish, shoham, and jasper, sapphire, chrysoprase, and emerald. And gold, the work of your drums and of your pipes, was within you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created. Ezekiel 28:12-13, 15.

Anyone may see that celestial and spiritual things of faith, and not just stones, are meant. Indeed each stone represented a particular essential element of faith.