Word
'Word,' as in Psalms 119:6-17, stands for doctrine in general. 'The Word,' as in Psalms 147:18, signifies divine good united with divine truth. 'Word,' as...
Joseph
'The tribe of Zebulon' signifies the conjunction of people in the third heaven with the Lord, 'the tribe of Joseph,' the conjunction of people in...
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...
Manasseh
'Manasseh' signifies the will of the spiritual church.
Ephraim
Ephraim was the second son born to Joseph in Egypt and was, along with his older brother Manasseh, elevated by Jacob to the same status...
Jacob
Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to...
Son
'A son,' as in Genesis 5:28, signifies the rise of a new church. 'Son,' as in Genesis 24:3, signifies the Lord’s rationality regarding good. 'A...
Coming
Coming (Gen. 41:14) denotes communication by influx.
see
The symbolic meaning of "seeing" is "understanding," which is obvious enough that it has become part of common language (think about it; you might see...
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...
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...
Bed
A bed of ivory (Amos 6:4) are doctrines apparently from rational truths.
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...
Ruler
'A ruler' or 'governor' signifies goods of the church, and in the opposite sense, falsities.
Vision
Vision is the innermost revelation, which is of perception. Visions are according to the state of humankind. The visions of people whose interiors are closed,...
Luz
'Luz,' as in Genesis 28, signifies a state wherein truth and good are together in the ultimate principle of order.
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 Canaan
The land of Canaan' in the Word, means love, and consequently, the will of the celestial self.
land of
'The land of Rameses,' as in Genesis 47:11, signifies the inmost of the spiritual principle in the natural mind.
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...
Blessing
Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving (Rev. 7.) signify divine spiritual things of the Lord.
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,...
give
Like other common verbs, the meaning of "give" in the Bible is affected by context: who is giving what to whom? In general, though, giving...
increase
'Produce' denotes fruit derived from the good of charity, and truth of faith.
Nations
'Nations' signify people who are in the good of love and charity from the Lord. Two nations in the womb,' as in Genesis 25:23, signify...
Seed
'A seed' signifies love, and everyone who has love, as in Genesis 12:7. 8:15, 16. 'A seed' signifies faith grounded in charity. 'A seed' signifies...
two
The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see...
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...
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...
Way
In John 14:6, 'the way is doctrine,' 'the truth' is every thing pertaining to doctrine, and 'the life' is the essential good which is the...
Reuben
'Reuben,' in the highest sense, signifies omniscience. In a spiritual sense, he signifies wisdom, intelligence, science, and faith. In a natural sense, he signifies sight....
Simeon
In Revelation 7, 'Simeon', in the highest sense, signifies providence, in a spiritual sense, love towards our neighbor, or charity, and in a natural sense,...
Offspring
'Offspring,' as in Isaiah 65:23, signifies people who are principled in the good of love.
Rachel
'Rachel' denotes the affection of interior truth.
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...
ephrath
There is a strong relationship between Ephrath and Bethlehem in the Bible; they might be two different names for the same town, or it’s possible...
Put
'To put' has reference to order, arrangement, application, and influx.
rest
'To slumber' and 'sleep' denotes the state of a person who is not in truths, as in Jeremiah 51:39, 57, Psalm 8:3 and 76:5, and...
road
These days we tend to think of "roads" as smooth swaths of pavement, and judge them by how fast we can drive cars on them....
come
As with common verbs in general, the meaning of “come” in the Bible is highly dependent on context – its meaning is determined largely by...
Near
'Near,' in the Word, signifies presence and conjunction. 'To be near' signifies being on internal levels. Near,' as in Genesis 19:20, signifies truth bordering upon...
old
'Old waste places' signify the celestial aspects of faith.
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...
Kiss
To kiss' signifies uniting or conjunction from affection. To kiss,' as in c, signifies initiation. 'To kiss' signifies conjunction and acknowledgment.
Arms
Arms and feet (Daniel 10:6) signify the exterior things of the Word, which are its literal sense.
face
“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That’s a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because...
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....
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...
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...
hand
In Genesis 27:22, 'voice' relates to truth, and 'hand,' to good.
Side
'Side' signifies good or spiritual love.
Left hand
'The left hand' in a negative sense signifies falsity which is used to produce evil.
stretching out
The hand in the Bible represents power, which is easy to understand, so to reach out or stretch out the hand means to exercise power,...
head
The head is the part of us that is highest, which means in a representative sense that it is what is closest to the Lord....
Younger
In general, birth order in the Bible reflects the progression of spiritual states, but the specifics of those states depends greatly on context: who the...
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.
Abraham
Abraham (or Abram, as he is named in the beginning of his story) is one of the major characters in the story of the sacred...
Isaac
'Isaac' represents spiritual love. 'Isaac,' in Genesis 17:19, signifies the rational divine. 'Isaac' signifies the Lord's divine rational in reference to divine good. Isaac' signifies...
Worship
'Worship,' as in Revelation 13:12, signifies acknowledging something to be sacred in the church.
angel
"Angels" in the Bible represent qualities of the Lord himself, or a variety of things that come directly from the Lord. On a lower level...
saviour
The Lord from the essential divine, through the divine human, is the savior. The Lord became the savior by His spiritual temptations, or combats.
Send
'To send' signifies revealing.
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...
to
‘To grow’ signifies to be perfected.
Nation
'A nation,' as in Genesis 21:18, signifies the spiritual church which should receive the good of faith. Nation from afar,' as in Jeremiah 5:17, signifies...
one
A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, line workers building them, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They...
Brother
There are two ways "brother" is used in the Bible, ways that are still reflected in modern language. One denotes an actual blood relationship; the...
say
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...
Sign
'A sign' is mentioned in the Word in reference to the future, which constitutes revelation. This also refers to truth, when it constitutes testification. It...
Shechem
In Genesis 12:6, 'Abram’s passing through the land unto the place Shechem' signifies a new state of the Lord when the celestial aspects of love...
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...
Bow
A bow signifies falsity of doctrine destroying truth, and spear, the falsity of evil destroying good. (Jer. 6:23.)
