'And you shall take two shoham stones' means the interior memory formed from the truths of faith that spring from love. '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. 'Six of their names on one stone' means the entire essential nature of truths springing from good. 'And the remaining six names on the other stone' means the [entire] essential nature of truths through which good comes. 'According to their generations' means both kinds in the order in which they are begotten and proceed one from the other. 'With the work of one who works on stones, [like] the engravings of a signet, you shall engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel' means the heavenly pattern which all the truths arranged into their proper order in the memory by the good of love take on, that is, the truths there which have been grasped by a regenerated person's understanding and then set in order by his will. 'Enclosed in sockets of gold you shall make them' means their being brought into being and kept in being by good. 'And you shall place the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod' means the preservation of good and truth by all exertion and power. 'As stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel' means out of mercy, for evermore for the spiritual kingdom. 'And Aaron shall bear their names before Jehovah on his two shoulders for remembrance' means a representative sign of the Divine preservation of good and truth for evermore, out of mercy. 'And you shall make sockets of gold' means being brought into being and kept unceasingly in being by good. 'And two small chains of pure gold' means coherence with the good of the whole kingdom. 'On the borders you shall make them' means at the most external parts through which influx comes. 'With the work of slender rope' means the mode of the joining together. 'And you shall put the small chains of slender rope in the sockets' means being joined to the good from which truths spring, and so the preservation of the spiritual kingdom by all exertion and power.

Notes