Abram
Abram represents different spiritual things, as his story develops. When he is first mentioned, Abram, with his brothers Nahor and Haran, are listed as the...
Ninety-nine years
Ninety-nine years,' as in Genesis 17:1, signifies the time before the Lord fully conjoined the internal human with the rational.
nine
'Nine' signifies conjunction.
old
'Old waste places' signify the celestial aspects of faith.
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...
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...
almighty
'Shaddai,' as in Genesis 43:14, signifies temptation, and consolation after temptation. This is because the ancients called the one and only God by various names...
walk
To walk in the Bible represents living, and usually means living according to the true things taught to us by the Lord -- to "walk...
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...
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...
perfect
'The days of the perfect' signifies the states of people who are in good and truths from good.
multiply
'Spreading themselves on the earth,' as in Genesis 8:17, signifies the internal self operating on the external.
Fell on his face
'To fall on his face' represents humility.
fell
Like other common verbs, the meaning of "fall" is highly dependent on context in regular language, and is highly dependent on context in a spiritual...
God
When the Bible speaks of "Jehovah," it is representing love itself, the inmost love that is the essence of the Lord. That divine love is...
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...
nations
The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nations.” When it uses “nation,” it is talking about a group with the...
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...
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...
Abraham
Abraham (or Abram, as he is named in the beginning of his story) was the ancestor of all the Children of Israel, through his son...
fruitful
To be fruitful is predicated of goodnesses, and to be multiplied, of truths.
kings
The human mind is composed of two parts, a will and an understanding, a seat of loves and affections, and a seat of wisdom and...
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...
after
According to Swedenborg, time and space don’t exist in spiritual reality; they are purely natural things that exist only on the physical plane. This means...
generations
To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people – it is a group that was...
everlasting
'Perpetual' in the literal sense, means to the end of one’s life, after death, and eternity.
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...
land
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...
sojourning
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...
Land of Canaan
The land of Canaan' in the Word, means love, and consequently, the will of the celestial self.
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...
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...
circumcised
The Writings teach that all parts of the human body correspond to spiritual things. That includes the sex organs of both men and women, which...
flesh
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...
foreskin
Heaven is filled with the love and delight of marriage, which has its origin in the marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord and...
sign
'A token,' as in Genesis 9:12, 13, 17, signifies causing it to be.
eight
According to Swedenborg, the number eight represents something that is complete within itself, in every respect. Two reasons are offered for this. First, eight is...
days
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...
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...
money
'Money' relates to truth.
uncircumcised
'The uncircumcised,' as in Ezekiel 31:18, signifies people lacking the good of charity.
soul
The nature of the soul is a deep and complicated topic, but it can be summarized as "spiritual life," who we are in terms of...
Cut off
To be cut off, as in Genesis 41:36, signifies to perish.
Sarai
'Sarah' denotes truth joined to good. Sarai was called 'Sarah' so she would represent the divine intellectual principle by adding the 'H' from the name...
wife
It is because of a celestial and angelic proprium, or selfhood, that the church is called 'a woman,' 'a wife,' 'a bride,' 'a virgin,' and...
call
'To proclaim' signifies exploration from influx of the Lord.
sarah
'Sarah' denotes truth joined to good. Sarai was called 'Sarah' so she would represent the divine intellectual principle by adding the 'H' from the name...
bless
The Lord is perfect love expressed as perfect wisdom. He created us so that He could love us, could give us love and wisdom of...
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...
peoples
The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nations.” When it uses “nation,” it is talking about a group with the...
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...
child
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....
born
In a general sense, being "born" in the Bible represents one spiritual state producing another, usually some form of love or affection producing or "giving...
To
‘To grieve at heart’ is in reference to love, and ‘to repent,’ to wisdom, as in Genesis 6:6.
hundred
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...
Ishmael
'Ishmael' represents the first rationality pertaining to the Lord. 'Ishmael' signifies rationality separate from good. 'Ishmael' signifies the Lord's merely human rational. Ishmael, in Genesis...
might
'Might' denotes the forces or power of truth.
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...
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...
great
The word "great" is used in the Bible to represent a state with a strong degree of love and affection, of the desire for good;...
beget
To beget or to be begotten is very similar in meaning to birth: It represents one spiritual state leading to the next spiritual state. "Beget,"...
nation
'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...
day
"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...
thirteen
'Thirteen,' between twelve and fourteen, denotes the intermediate state. 'Thirteen,' as the sum of ten and three, denotes remains.
Thirteen years
'Thirteen years,' as in Genesis 17:25, signifies a state of holy remains.
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