The speech of the celestial angels abounds in the vowels A (ah, as in father), and U (as u in rule). One may often determine from the Hebrew vowels in a passage which words belong to the class of celestials and which to the spirituals — i.e., whether they involve good or truth. The former use more frequently the sounds of O and U, for they have a full tone, and also occur oftener in the Third Heaven. (Heaven and Hell 241; True Christian Religion 278;, Spiritual Experiences 5112, 5620, 5787)

241. Angels who live in the Lord's heavenly kingdom talk much the same way as angels who are citizens of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. However, heavenly angels talk from a deeper level of thought than spiritual angels do. Further, since heavenly angels are attuned to the good of love for the Lord, they talk from wisdom, while spiritual angels — being attuned to the good of thoughtfulness toward their neighbor (which in its essence is truth, see 215)-talk from intelligence. For wisdom comes from what is good and intelligence from what is true.

The speech of heavenly angels is like a gentle stream, soft and virtually unbroken, while the speech of spiritual angels is a little more resonant and crisp. Then too, the vowels U and O tend to predominate in the speech of heavenly angels, while in the speech of spiritual angels it is the vowels E and I. The vowels stand for the sound and in the sound there is the affection; for as already noted (236), the sound of angels' speech is responsive to their affection, and the articulations of the sound, or the words, correspond to the individual ideas that stem from their affection. For this reason, the vowels do not belong to the language but to a raising of its words, by means of sounds, toward various affections according to the state of each individual. So in Hebrew the vowels are not written and are also pronounced variously. This enables angels to recognize what someone's quality is in respect to affection and love.

Further still, the language of heavenly angels lacks any hard consonants and rarely puts two consonants together without inserting a word that begins with a vowel. This is why the little word and is inserted so often in the Word, as can be determined by people who read the Word in Hebrew, in which language that word is soft and in either pronunciation is a vowel sound. We can also learn some of this from the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible, since the words belong to either a heavenly or a spiritual category. That is, they involve either what is good or what is true, with the expressions involving what is good making ample use of the vowels U and O and to some extent A, and the expressions involving what is true making use of E and I.

Since affections are expressed primarily through sounds, words that use U and O are well loved in human language to express great matters like heaven and God. Musical sounds tend in this direction as they rise, when they are dealing with such matters, but not when they are dealing with lesser things. This is why the art of music is so adept at expressing various kinds of affection.

8042. 'Sanctify to Me all the firstborn' means faith — that it comes from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'sanctifying' to Jehovah or the Lord, as ascribing something to Him, that is, confessing or acknowledging that it comes from Him; and from the meaning of 'the firstborn' as faith, dealt with in 352, 2435, 6344, 7035. When the term faith is used all the truth that the spiritual Church possesses is meant; and since all the truth that the Church possesses is meant, the spiritual Church itself is also meant, for truth is the essential element of this Church. Good is, it is true, the essential element of a Church, and really is the firstborn, 2435, 3325, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930; but good as it exists among those belonging to the spiritual Church is in itself truth. For when these people act in accordance with the truth they have been taught, that truth is called good; for it has then passed from their understanding into their will, and from their will into action, and anything done which springs from the will is called good. In itself, in essence, this good is still truth, and this is because for those people things taught by the Church are truths; and since teachings within Churches are diverse, so too are truths. But in spite of that, though they vary so much, such truths become good, as has just been stated, when people will them and act them out.

[2] While a person is being regenerated he is led by means of faith in the understanding, or doctrine, to faith in the will, or life; that is, he is led through the truth of faith to the good of charity. When the good of charity resides with a person he has been regenerated; and from that good he now gives birth to truths which are called the truths of good. These are the truths which are the most authentic truths of faith; and they are meant by the firstborn. For the generations or births of truths from good are like the generations or births of sons and daughters from a parent, later on of grandsons and granddaughters, then of great-grandsons and great granddaughters, and so on. The first generation or those born from the actual parent, the generation of sons and daughters, is what is meant by 'the firstborn', however many they may be; the second and third generations are not meant, except when considered in relation to their own parents. The reason why the firstborn were consecrated to Jehovah or the Lord is that all secondary or descending generations of truths and forms of good derive their essential nature from the primary ones. This spiritual reality is at the root of the right of the firstborn spoken of in the Word.