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...
remembered
'To remember,' as in Genesis 41:9, signifies conjunction. 'Remembering' denotes conjunction because the remembrance of anyone in the other life joins them together, because as...
noah
'Noah,' as in Genesis 5:29, signifies the ancient church, or the parent of the three churches after the flood.
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...
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...
earth
'Lands' of different nations are used in the Word to signify the different kinds of love prevalent in the inhabitants.
waters
'Waters,' 'rivers,' and 'depths,' as in Psalm 78:15-16, signify truths from the Lord.
fountains
A fountain signifies the Lord and the Word. A fountain signifies superior truth, and well, inferior truth. A fountain, as in Psalm 104:10, denotes knowledges....
heaven
Heavens are celestial and spiritual things. Consequently, they are inmost things, both of the Lord's kingdom in heaven the and in the earth. This also...
Hundred and fifty
'A hundred and fifty,' as mentioned in Genesis 7:24, signifies a last and first term. Here, it refers to the last term of the most...
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...
fifty
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....
abated
For something to “fail” in the Bible means there is not enough understanding of truth and desire for good for someone to attain a higher...
month
'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...
day
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...
day of
'Day of vengeance' signifies a state of damnation.
mountains of Ararat
Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark came to rest after the flood, (Genesis 8:4), denotes the light of a regenerate person. This light is the first...
mountains
In Isaiah 40:12 'to weigh the mountains in a balance, and the hills in scales,' signifies that the celestial aspects of love and charity are...
seen
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...
forty
'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...
opened
To open,' as in Revelation 9, signifies communication and conjunction.
window
'Window' signifies truth in the light.
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...
Raven
'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...
dried
'Withering and drying up,' as in Ezekiel 17:10, referring to the east wind, signifies when there is no good or truth.
dove
'A turtle dove' and 'young pigeon,' as in Genesis 15:9, represents exterior and interior spiritual things.
found
To not to be found any more, signifies not to rise again.
foot
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...
returned
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...
Put
'To put' has reference to order, arrangement, application, and influx.
hand
In Genesis 27:22, 'voice' relates to truth, and 'hand,' to good.
seven
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,...
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...
Olive
'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...
leaf
'Leaves' symbolize rational truths because a tree symbolizes a person, and every part of the tree symbolizes accordant elements in the person.
knew
In a general sense, men represent things of the intellect – facts, ideas, knowledge, everything from the deepest truths to the most pernicious falsities about...
six
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...
first
'The first and the last' signifies that the Lord is the only God.
the first
'Resurrection' signifies salvation and eternal life. 'The first,' mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, does not mean a first resurrection, but the essence and primary part...
removed
As with many verbs, the meaning of "remove" in the Bible varies a good bit depending on context. It generally involves a separation of spiritual...
Covering
A covering of precious stones (Ezek. 28:4, 13) signifies the truths of intelligence.
surface
A 'surface' denotes the extreme.
ground
In Zechariah 8:12, 'the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground her increase,' signifies that the spiritual affection of truth produces the good of...
Second month
'Second month,' as in Genesis 8:14, signifies every state before regeneration, which is because of the significance of 'two' in the Word. 'Two' signifies the...
twenty
'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...
Twenty-seventh day
'The twenty-seventh day,' as in Genesis 8:14, signifies holiness, because it is the product of three multiplied into itself twice: three multiplied into itself is...
spoke
Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones – and ultimately...
Go out
To go out to meet, as in Genesis 14:17, signifies to submit themselves. To go out, as in Genesis 28:10, signifies to live more remotely....
go
In the physical world, the places we inhabit and the distances between them are physical realities, and we have to get our physical bodies through...
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...
sons
'Sons of the stranger' signify counterfeit truths, or falsities. 'Our sons' signify the doctrines of truth, and 'our daughters,' the doctrines of good, as in...
wives
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...
animal
"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...
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...
Fowl
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...
Creeping things
Creeping things (Gen. 6:7) signifies pleasures as well corporeal as sensual. Creeping things, in a proper sense, are what were the vilest of all which...
fruitful
To be fruitful is predicated of goodnesses, and to be multiplied, of truths.
multiply
'Spreading themselves on the earth,' as in Genesis 8:17, signifies the internal self operating on the external.
built
wrought (also entwined or entwisted) is predicated of the natural scientific principle, and in Isaiah 45:13, of divine natural truth.
altar
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...
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...
clean
To be "pure" in the Bible means - unsurprisingly - to be devoid of evil. Thus all the washing for purification prescribed in the Laws...
Offerings
'Offerings' signify worship.
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...
odour
Fragrance means the affection of truth derived from good.
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...
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...
evil
'Wickedness' signifies evil, and 'iniquity' signifies falsities.
youth
'Tender of age' denotes the state of truths newly received not yet genuine.
smite
'The smitten' signify people who are oppressed by the falsities of ignorance.
living
'Lives' is used in the plural, because of the will and understanding, and because these two lives make one.
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...
Harvest
'A harvest' symbolizes the state of the church with respect to Divine truth. The reason is that a harvest yields the grain used to make...
summer
Summer' signifies the full state of the church, the same as 'noon.'
winter
'Winter' signifies the same thing as 'night,' that is, the end of the church.
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...
