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...
South
'South' denotes truth in light.
country
Generally in the Bible a "country" means a political subdivision ruled by a king, or sometimes a tribe with a territory ruled by a king...
Kadesh
'Kadesh' denotes truths, and contention about truths.
Shur
'Shur,' or 'Assyria,' signifies the Lord's state when He first received instruction in matters of doctrine regarding charity and faith.
sojourned
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...
Gerar
Gerar, as in Genesis 10:19, signifies those things which are revealed concerning faith.
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...
wife
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...
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...
Abimelech
Abimelech, his companion Ahusath, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army (Genesis 26:26), represent the doctrinals of faith as grounded in the literal sense...
king
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...
Sent
'Being sent' everywhere signifies, in an internal sense, going forth, as in John 17:8. In similar manner, it is said of the holy of the...
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...
Dream
A dream, as in Genesis 20:3,signifies being somewhat obscure.
night
The sun in the Bible represents the Lord, with its heat representing His love and its light representing His wisdom. “Daytime,” then, represents a state...
Dead
Dead (Gen. 23:8) signifies night, in respect to the goodnesses and truths of faith.
man
The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings – Conjugial Love or Love in Marriage –...
woman
The word "woman" is used a number of different ways in the Bible – as a simple description, as someone connected to a man ("his...
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...
kill
The Lord is love itself, and that love is the ultimate source of all energy and thus of all life. It follows, then, that the...
righteous
The word "righteous" has taken on a bit of negative shading in modern language. That may be because we hear it most often as part...
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...
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...
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...
Integrity
'Integrity,' as in Genesis 20:5, signifies innocence and simplicity.
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...
hands
Scientists believe that one of the most crucial developments in the evolution of humans was bipedalism – walking on two legs. That left our hands...
touch
Imagine having your mother touch your cheek. Then imagine having your spouse or someone you love romantically touch your cheek. Then imagine having a baby...
prophet
The idea of a "prophet" is very closely tied to the idea of the Bible itself, since the Bible was largely written by prophets. At...
pray
When people pray in the Bible, it means they are opening up their internal states. When it is the Lord praying, or a figure who...
know
Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases – when it...
die
'To perish,' or 'die,' relates to damnation, or the state in hell.
rose
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...
early
Since the sun represents the Lord, the early morning and sunrise represent a state of enlightenment, with a new and clear understanding coming after a...
morning
Morning comes with the rising of the sun, and the sun – which gives life to the earth with its warmth and light – represents...
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...
servants
“Servant” literally means “a person who serves another,"" and its meaning is similar in reference to the spiritual meaninngs of the Bible. Our lives in...
Words
'Words,' as in Exodus 34:28, signify everything pertaining to doctrine.
Us
Because people are governed by angels and spirits, in Genesis 1:26 it says 'let us make man into our image.' But because the Lord alone...
sin
In the Word three terms are used to mean bad things that are done. These three are transgression, iniquity, and sin, and they are here...
kingdom
In the most general sense, a kingdom in the Bible represents a church. In a more specific sense, a kingdom represents a church in regards...
seen
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...
fear
Fear of the unknown and fear of change are both common ideas, and together cover a broad spectrum of the fears we tend to have...
Fear of God
Fear of God, as used in the Word, signifies worship, either grounded in fear, or in the good of faith, or in the good of...
Place
'A dry place,' as in Luke 11:24, signifies states of evil and falsity which are in the life of someone who does the work of...
daughter
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...
mother
Father, son, mother, and daughter, as in Luke 12:51, 53: By father against son, and by son against the father, is understood evil against truth,...
came to pass
The phrase “it came to pass,” often also translated as “it happened,” generally indicates the end of one spiritual state and the beginning of a...
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...
Wander
'To wander,' as in Amos 4:8, signifies inquiry. 'To wander blind in the streets,' as in Lamentations 4:14, means not knowing good and truth.
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...
Shew
'Shew' signifies instruction to the life.
sheep
It’s pretty easy for most people to read the Bible and get a sense for what “sheep” means without any help. They are simple, peaceful,...
Oxen
'Oxen' or 'calves' signify the affections of the natural mind.
bondmen
Freemen and bondmen, as in Revelation 6:15, signifies those who know and understand from themselves, and those who know and understand from others.
restored
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...
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...
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...
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...
thousand
As children, most of us at some point frustrated our mothers into using the phrase “if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand...
Pieces
'Broken into pieces' denotes the way good not from the Lord will be dissipated.
silver
'Spoil of gold, and silver, and cattle' signifies falsified truths.
Covering
A covering of precious stones (Ezek. 28:4, 13) signifies the truths of intelligence.
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...
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....
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...
Fast
To fast as in Mark 2:19, signifies to mourn on account of the defect of truth and good. Fasting corresponds to temptation.
closed
There are only a couple of references in the Writings to "close" used as a verb, and both stem from Amos 9:11, which talks about...
