144. In regard to the idea that naming things means recognizing their nature, it needs to be realized that the ancients took a name to mean simply the essence of a thing, and seeing something and naming it to mean recognizing its nature. 1 This was due to the fact that they gave their daughters and sons names with a relevant meaning. Every name had a unique element that indicated where people were from and what they were like. Explanations further on concerning Jacob's twelve sons will, by the Lord's divine mercy, demonstrate this. 2
Since names, then, told where people were from and what they were like, that is exactly what naming something meant to those ancient people. Such a manner of speaking was familiar to them, and anyone who fails to understand it will be puzzled by the symbolism.
Бележки под линия:
1. The identity of a thing with its name was a central feature of ancient Semitic thought. In Hebrew, for instance, the word דָּבָר (dāḇār) can mean both "word" and "thing" (Brown, Driver, and Briggs 1996, under דָּבָר). The Babylonians as well saw the two as interwoven: "For the Babylonians, a thing does not exist unless it has a name; unless it has one, it is not known; it does not exist" (Contenau 1947, 127). [RS]
2. Elsewhere in Secrets of Heaven Swedenborg discusses both the literal and the inner meanings of the names of Jacob's twelve sons: Reuben (§§3861-3863), Simeon (§§3869-3872), Levi (§§3873-3877), Judah (§§3880-3881), Dan (§§3920-3923), Naphtali (§§3927-3928), Gad (§§3934-3935), Asher (§§3938-3939), Issachar (§§3956-3957), Zebulun (§§3960-3961), Joseph (§3969), and Benjamin (§§4591-4592). [JSR]
