moses
Moses's name appears 814 times in the Bible (KJV), third-most of any one character (Jesus at 961 actually trails David at 991). He himself wrote...
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....
Israel
'Israel,' in Jeremiah 23:8, signifies the spiritual natural church. The children of Israel dispersed all the literal sense of the Word by falsities. 'The children...
Song
'A song' signifies acknowledgment and confession from joy of heart.
Jehovah
The Lord, in the simplest terms, is love itself expressed as wisdom itself. In philosophic terms, love is the Lord's substance and wisdom is His...
Horse
'A horse' signifies knowledges or understanding of the Word. In an opposite sense it signifies the understanding of the Word falsified by reasonings, and likewise...
sea
'The sea and the waves roaring' means heresy and controversies in the church and individual.
Strength
Strength' relates truth and falsity. Strength,' as in Luke 10:27, signifies the will and understanding extended to extremes. Strength,' as in Revelation 1:6, signifies divine...
salvation
'Salvation, to the Lord our God,' as in Revelation 19:1, signifies an acknowledgment and confession that salvation is from the Lord.
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...
father
Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In...
Man of war
'Man of war' signifies truth combating against falsity and destroying it. 'Man of war' signifies truth derived from good, and destroying falsity. 'Man of war'...
man
The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings – Conjugial Love or Love in Marriage –...
war
War in the Word represents the combat of temptation when what is good is assaulted by what is evil or false. The evil that attacks...
name
It's easy to see that names are important in the Bible. Jehovah changed Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah, changed Jacob to Israel and...
Pharaoh
'Pharaoh' signifies scientific ideas, or the natural principle in general. 'Pharaoh' signifies false ideas infesting the truth of the church. Pharaoh,' in Genesis 40, represents...
host
A host and an army come from the same Hebrew word and mean the same thing in Bible; when the Children of Israel were numbered...
cast
For something to be cast down or cast out generally refers to a rather dramatic move from a higher spiritual state to a lower one....
Captains
Captains and Rulers (Jer. 51:23) signifies principal evils and falsities. Captains and Rulers (Ezek 33:6) signifies principal truths. See Chief Captains.
Red sea
'The Red sea' signifies hell and damnation, or temptation.
Deeps
The deeps mentioned in Psalms 148:7 signify the ultimate heavens, in which the spiritual natural angels are ; also divine truths in abundance, and arcana...
Cover
The "high mountains being covered " (Gen. 7:19) signifies that all the good things of charity were extinguished.
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,"...
depths
'Waters,' 'rivers,' and 'depths,' as in Psalm 78:15-16, signify truths from the Lord.
stone
Stones in the Bible in general represent truths, or things we know concerning the Lord and what He wants from us and for us in...
Right hand
'The right hand' signifies the whole of a person regarding intellectual power, and so, regarding faith. 'To place the right hand on the head,' signifies...
glorious
We tend to speak somewhat casually of "truth from the Lord," but in actual fact the Writings tell us that in its true form the...
Power
Power,' as in Revelation 4, signifies salvation, because all divine power regards this as its final purpose. A person is reformed by divine power, and...
pieces
The two sticks, in Ezekiel 37:16-22, signify the celestial and spiritual kingdom of the Lord.
enemy
An enemy in the Bible refers to people who are in the love of evil and the false thinking that springs from evil. On a...
rise
It is common in the Bible for people to "rise up," and it would be easy to pass over the phrase as simply describing a...
wrath
'Wrath,' as in Genesis 49:7, signifies aversion from truth. 'Great wrath,' as in Revelation 12:12, signifies hatred against the new church.
Stubble
'To be consumed as stubble' denotes total vastation.
Nostrils
'A blast of the breath of the nostrils' signify the same thing as 'his anger and wrath.'
Upright
'Upright' signifies truth originating in charity. Truth may be derived from various origins, but what originates in the good of charity from the Lord is...
Heap
'A heap,' as mentioned in Genesis 31:40, signifies good, because in the past, before they built altars, the ancients made heaps and ate together upon...
heart
The heart means love. A good heart means love to the Lord and to the neighbor while a hard or stony heart means the love...
said
As with many common verbs, the meaning of “to say” in the Bible is highly dependent on context. Who is speaking? Who is hearing? What...
Pursue
'To pursue,' as in Genesis 14:16, signifies a state of purification, because 'to pursue enemies' is the expulsion of evils and falsities which were with...
Overtake
'To overtake' denotes communication and influx.
spoil
'Spoil of gold, and silver, and cattle' signifies falsified truths.
draw
"Drawing" is used a number of different ways in the Bible, generally in the sense of pulling, leading or moving: People most commonly draw water,...
Sword
A 'sword,' in the Word, signifies the truth of faith combating and the vastation of truth. In an opposite sense, it signifies falsity combating and...
Wind
Because a nearer and stronger divine influx through the heavens disperses truths among the wicked, 'wind' signifies this dispersion of truth and the resulting conjunction...
sank
The spiritual meaning of "sink" is relatively easy to see: It means to descend into lower spiritual states, especially into states where false reasoning and...
lead
The meaning of "leading" people in the Bible is pretty straightforward, though obviously it is about leading people in spiritual things, not natural ones. When...
Mighty
Mighty,' as in Revelation 19:18, signify people who are educated about doctrine derived from the Word. By extension, 'mighty' signifies education or learning derived from...
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...
Fearful
The fearful signify people who have no faith.
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...
Led
'To be led by the Lord' is to be in a state of essential liberty, blessedness, and happiness.
holy
The Bible describes many things as being holy, or sacred. The Ark of the Covenant is one very holy object. The inmost chamber of the...
habitation
'The sanctuary and habitation' together signify heaven and the church, 'sanctuary' regarding the good of love, and 'tabernacle' regarding truths of that good, because the...
peoples
The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nation.” When it uses the term “nation,” it is talking about a group...
heard
Thanks to modern science, we now understand that hearing actually happens in the brain, not the ears. The ears collect vibrations in the air and...
Tremble
'To tremble,' as in Jeremiah 10:10, relates to the church when falsities are believed and called truths.
Hold
'A hold,' 'a den,' or 'dungeon,' as mentioned in Revelation 18:2, signifies hell, because people who are there are in confinement.
the inhabitants
'The inhabitants of Teman,' as in Jeremiah 49:20, signifies the evils and falsities opposed to the Lord’s celestial kingdom.
Inhabitants
Inhabitants,' in Isaiah 26:9, signify the men of the church who are in good of doctrine, and thence in the good of life.
chiefs
On July 3, 1863, 12,500 Confederate troops attacked their Union foes during the Battle of Gettysburg, a turning point in the American Civil War. The...
Edom
'Edom' or 'Idumea,' as in Isaiah 34:5, signifies those who are in evil and in falsities thence derived.
Mighty men
'Mighty men,' as in Lamentations 1:15, denotes people who are in the good of love.
Moab
'Moab,' in a positive sense, signifies people who are in natural good, and allow themselves to be easily seduced, but in an opposite sense, it...
Trembling
'The dregs of the cup of trembling' signifies mere falsities which evils are derived from.
of Canaan
'Sons of Canaan,' as in Genesis 10, are people who kept external worship separate from internal.
Canaan
Canaan signifies a worship in things external without internals, which arose out of the internal church corrupted, called Ham. Thus it is that Ham is...
still
When something is described as quiet, still or calm in the Bible, it represents the state of peace that comes with being aligned with the...
Pass
'To pass,' as in Genesis 31:52, signifies flowing in. 'To pass the night,' as in Genesis 24:54, signifies having peace. 'To pass through,' as in...
over
'Upon' or 'over' signifies being within.
bring
As with common verbs in general, the meaning of “bring” is highly dependent on context, but in general it represents an introduction to a new...
plant
'A shrub' signifies the knowledges of truth.
mountain
The Writings tell us that the Lord's love is the sun of heaven, and it is natural for us to look above ourselves to the...
inheritance
In Biblical times, possessions passed from fathers to sons, a patriarchal system that would not be accepted in today's society – but one that is...
place
'A room' or 'place' denotes state.
dwell
Many people were nomadic in Biblical times, especially the times of the Old Testament, and lived in tents that could be struck, moved and re-raised...
Sanctuary
'Sanctuary' signifies the truth of heaven and the church. 'Sanctuary,' as in Ezekiel 24:21, signifies the Word.
hands
'Washing of the hands' was an ancient declaration of innocence, and signifies purification from evils and falsities, as in Psalms 73:13 and Matthew 27:24.
Reign
To reign,' as in Revelation 5, signifies being in truths and goods, and so in power, from the Lord, to resist evils and falsities which...
back
There are many instances in the Bible which describe people turning back, looking back or going back. In most cases it is a negative, sometimes...
walked
To walk in the Bible represents living, and usually means living according to the true things taught to us by the Lord -- to "walk...
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...
midst
The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation...
Miriam
'Miriam,' as in Exodus 15:20, signifies the good of faith.
Sister
The Lord calls people who are in truth from the good of charity from Him 'sisters,' as in Matthew 12:50. 'Sister' denotes intellectual truth, when...
aaron
Aaron was the brother of Moses. He symbolizes two things, one during the first part of the exodus, when he was Moses' spokesperson, and another...
Timbrel
'A timbrel,' as in Psalms 81:2, has respect to what is spiritual.
Women
'Women,' as in Genesis 45:19, signify the affections of truth. But in Genesis 31:50, 'women' signify affections of not genuine truth, so not of the...
timbrels
'Trumpets and timbrels' correspond to celestial goods and truths. 'Psalteries and harps' correspond to spiritual goods and truths. The correspondence is from their sounds.
Dances
Dances (Exod. 15:20) relate to the affection of spiritual good, or the good of truth, and signify its pleasantness and joy.
Wilderness
'Wilderness' signifies something with little life in it, as described in the internal sense in Luke 1:80 'Wilderness' signifies somewhere there is no good because...
Shur
'Shur,' or 'Assyria,' signifies the Lord's state when He first received instruction in matters of doctrine regarding charity and faith.
three
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...
days
"Day" describes a state in which we are turned toward the Lord, and are receiving light (which is truth) and heat (which is a desire...
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,...
came
As with common verbs in general, the meaning of “come” in the Bible is highly dependent on context – its meaning is determined largely by...
Marah
'Marah' denotes the quality and quantity of temptation, and also what is bitter.
drink
Food in the Bible represents the desire for good, and water and other drinks represent the understanding and true ideas we need to recognize what...
called
To call someone or summon someone in the Bible represents a desire for conjunction between higher and lower states of life. For instance, imagine someone...
cried
As with most common verbs, the spiritual meaning of “crying” or “crying out” (meaning a shout or wail, not weeping) is highly dependent on context....
tree
In general, plants in the Bible represent facts, thoughts and ideas – intellectual things. This makes sense: Plants are rooted in place, but can grow...
Sweet
Sweet' signifies delightful things from the good of truth and the truth of good. Everything sweet in the natural world corresponds to delightful and pleasant...
Hearken
'To hearken to father and mother,' as mentioned in Genesis 28:7, signifies obedience from affection. 'To hearken,' as mentioned in Genesis 30:22, signifies providence. See...
voice
In Genesis 27:22, 'voice' relates to truth, and 'hand,' to good.
eyes
It’s common to say “I see” when we understand something. And indeed, “seeing” in the Bible represents grasping and understanding spiritual things. So it makes...
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...
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...
Put
'To put' has reference to order, arrangement, application, and influx.
none
'No one,' or 'none' denotes the negative side of something.
Egyptians
Egyptians represent those who are in natural science, thus the natural, but the Hebrews, those who are of the church, thus respectively the spiritual. The...
Elim
Elim (Exod. 15:27) signifies a state of illustration and of affection, thus of consolation after temptation.
twelve
'Twelve' and 'twenty-four' signify everything, and refer to truths.
Trees
'Trees,' in general, signify the perceptions when discussing the celestial self, but when related to the spiritual church, they signify knowledges. A person in the...
