神
The Lord is love itself, expressed in the form of wisdom itself. Love, then, is His essence, His inmost. Wisdom - the loving understanding of...
獸
"Beasts" represent the affection for doing good things, a true desire to do them from the heart. In the negative sense, "beasts" stand for the...
風
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...
水
'Waters' signify truths in the natural self, and in the opposite sense, falsities. 'Waters' signify particularly the spiritual parts of a person, or the intellectual...
百
It's a landmark for a young child to count to 100; it sort of covers all the "ordinary" numbers. One hundred is obviously significant for...
五十
God rested on the seventh day of creation. That represents a state of holiness and tranquility that was preserved in the form of the sabbath....
天
The expression 'even to this day' or 'today' sometimes appears in the Word, as in Genesis 19:37-38, 22:14, 26:33, 32:32, 35:20, and 47:26. In a...
七
The number 'seven' was considered holy, as is well known, because of the six days of creation, and the seventh, which is the celestial self,...
月
'A month' has respect to the state of truth in a person. 'A month' signifies a full state. Month,' as in Genesis 29, signifies the...
十七
'Seventeen' signifies both the beginning and the end of temptation, because it is made up of the numbers seven and ten. This number, when it...
山
'Hills' signify the good of charity.
一
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...
四十
'Forty' means completeness because 'four' means what is complete, as does 'ten.' Forty is the product of four and ten. Compound numbers have a meaning...
開了
To open,' as in Revelation 9, signifies communication and conjunction.
烏鴉
'A raven,' as in Genesis 8:7, signifies falsities. The spiritual self only knows general truths from the Word, and forms its conscience from these, and...
鴿子
A dove (Gen. 8.) signifies goodness and truth. A dove, as in Hosea 11:11, signifies rational good.
看
To look,' as in Genesis 18:22, signifies thinking, because seeing denotes understanding. Look not back behind thee,' as in Genesis 19:17, means that Lot, who...
找
To not to be found any more, signifies not to rise again.
腳
The foot, as in Deuteronomy 33:3, signifies an inferior principle. To set the right foot on the sea and the left on the earth, as...
手
Scientists believe that one of the most crucial developments in the evolution of humans was bipedalism – walking on two legs. That left our hands...
來
Coming (Gen. 41:14) denotes communication by influx.
晚上
Since the light and warmth of the sun represent the Lord’s wisdom and love, it makes sense that evening, a time when the light and...
橄欖
'An olive,' as in Isaiah 17:6, signifies celestial remains. 'An olive' signifies love and charity, because 'the olive tree' signifies the celestial church, and so...
葉
'Leaves' symbolize rational truths because a tree symbolizes a person, and every part of the tree symbolizes accordant elements in the person.
知道
Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases – when it...
回來
Everyone knows the phrase "the natural order of things." It means that everything is in its proper place, occupying the niche it is meant to...
六
Like most numbers in the Bible, "six" can have various meanings depending on context, but has a couple that are primary. When used in relation...
地面
Is there any difference in meaning between “earth” and “ground”? At first it doesn’t seem so; both refer to the soil making up the land...
二十
'Twenty,' when referring to a quantity, signifies everything or fullness, because it is ten twice. 'Twenty,' as in Genesis 18:31, like all numbers occurring in...
說
Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones – and ultimately...
妻子
The Hebrew of the Old Testament has six different common words which are generally translated as "wife," which largely overlap but have different nuances. Swedenborg...
兒子
'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...
肉
Flesh has several meanings just in its most obvious form. It can mean all living creatures as when the Lord talks about the flood "destroying...
鳥
Fowl signify spiritual truth; a bird, natural truth; and a winged thing, sensual truth. Fowl signify intellectual things. Fowl signify thoughts, and all that creeps...
耶和華
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...
壇
The first altar mentioned in the Word was built by Noah after he came out of the ark. On that altar, he sacrificed clean animals...
聞
Fragrance means the affection of truth derived from good.
心
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...
