8006. 'All the assembly of Israel shall keep it' means that this law of order is for all who are governed by the good of truth and guided by the truth of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the assembly of Israel' as all truths and forms of good in their entirety, 7830, thus those who are guided by truth that leads to good, and governed by good through which truth comes, 7957, consequently those who belong to the spiritual Church. They were all required to keep the Passover in order that they might represent the deliverance of those belonging to the spiritual Church who were held back on the lower earth until the Lord's Coming, 6854, 6914, 7091 (end), 7849, 7932; and their eating it 'in one house' represented groups of angels living in association with one another in heaven, 7836, 7996, 7997, so that the keeping of it by the whole assembly of Israel represented the whole of heaven. At that time the Church did not exist anywhere, only a representative of the Church, for which Abraham's descendants through Jacob were selected. Through representatives of the Church contact with heaven was established, and through heaven with the Lord. This was why that nation was commanded to maintain a strict observance of all statutes and all laws, above all the statutes relating to the Passover, so strict that anyone who was clean and did not keep the Passover was to be cut off, Numbers 9:13.

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.