God
The Lord is love itself, expressed in the form of wisdom itself. Love, then, is His essence, His inmost. Wisdom - the loving understanding of...
spake
Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones – and ultimately...
Words
'Words,' as in Exodus 34:28, signify everything pertaining to doctrine.
the Lord
The Bible refers to the Lord in many different ways, which from the text seem indistinguishable and interchangeable. Understood in the internal sense, though, there...
Land
Land' in the Word, denotes the church, for the things which signify the church also signify the things relating to the church, for these constitute...
land of
'The land of Rameses,' as in Genesis 47:11, signifies the inmost of the spiritual principle in the natural mind.
egypt
In the Bible, Egypt means knowledge and the love of knowledge. In a good sense that means knowledge of truth from the Lord through the...
house
A "house" is essentially a container - for a person, for a family, for several families or even for a large group with shared interests...
gods
The Lord is called "Jehovah" in the Bible when the text is referring to his essence, which is love itself. He is called "God" when...
before
In most cases, the meaning of "before" is pretty straightforward, both as a way of assessing relative time, and in its use meaning "in someone's...
Make
'To make,' as in Hosea 8:11, refers to good. In the opposite sense it refers to evil. To make heaven, and earth, and the sea,...
Graven image
A graven image, as in Exodus 20:4, which we are commanded not to make, signifies those things in us which are not from the Lord,...
Image
'An image' signifies falsities from self-derived intelligence.
heaven
"Heaven" and "heavens" are used many times in the Bible, with a couple of variations of meaning. Sometimes it is relatively literal, including times when...
Earth
"Earth" in the Bible can mean a person or a group of like-minded people as in a church. But it refers specifically to the external...
water
Water was obviously of tremendous importance in Biblical times (and every other time). It is the basis of life, the essential ingredient in all drinks,...
under
Generally speaking things that are seen as lower physically in the Bible represent things that are lower or more external spiritually. In some cases this...
bow down
To bow in prayer is common in most religious practices, so it's not surprising that “to bow” in the Bible represents humility and worship in...
Bow
A bow signifies falsity of doctrine destroying truth, and spear, the falsity of evil destroying good. (Jer. 6:23.)
down
"Down" is used many different ways in natural language, and its spiritual meaning in the Bible is highly dependent on context. Phrases like "bowing down,"...
serve
Generally speaking, those who are at lower levels of an organization serve those at higher levels. Bosses boss and their employees serve; coaches devise strategy...
Jealous
Jealous' or 'zealous,' in Genesis 30:1, signifies an aspect of indignation.
visiting
There is a long history of using travel to round out an education, from the 19th-century “world tours” taken by Oxford and Cambridge graduates to...
iniquity
Folly, iniquity, hypocrisy, and error, as in Isaiah 9:17: Folly has respect to the false, iniquity signifies evil, hypocrisy, the evils spoken against goods, and...
upon
'Upon' or 'over' signifies being within.
children
A child is a young boy or girl in the care of parents, older than a suckling or an infant, but not yet an adolescent....
third
The Writings talk about many aspects of life using the philosophical terms "end," "cause" and "effect." The "end" is someone’s goal or purpose, the ultimate...
fourth
The number "four" in the Bible represents things being linked together or joined. This is partly because four is two times two, and two represents...
generation
To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people – it is a group that was...
hate
If you truly hate someone, that means you would kill them and destroy their reputation if you could do so without repercussion – not a...
love
To some degree, there really is no spiritual meaning to the word “love” in the Bible. Why? Because if you truly love another, that is...
keep
"Keeping" in the Bible generally has to do with controlling the actual actions of life, though in some cases it can mean holding something away...
commandments
In Deuteronomy 11:1, 'statutes' signify the external parts of the Word, such as rituals, and representations of the internal sense. 'Judgments' signify the internal parts...
