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...
Noah
'Noah,' as in Genesis 5:29, signifies the ancient church, or the parent of the three churches after the flood.
Cattle
Animals in the Bible generally refer to spiritual activity, the things we actually do on a spiritual level. "Cattle," as typically used in the Bible,...
wind
In the Bible, the wind represents the power of the Lord working on us through the heavens. The Lord is love itself, and by extending...
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...
over
'Upon' or 'over' signifies being within.
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...
Waters
'Waters,' 'rivers,' and 'depths,' as in Psalm 78:15-16, signify truths from the Lord.
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...
Rain
'Rain,' in a positive sense, denotes blessing, but in the opposite sense, damnation Rain,' as in Genesis 2:5-6, Exodus 34:25-27, and Hosea 6:3, signifies the...
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...
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...
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....
days
"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...
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 of
'Day of vengeance' signifies a state of damnation.
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...
Ararat
Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark came to rest after the flood, (Gen 8:4), denotes the light of a regenerate person. This light is the first...
tenth
Most places in Swedenborg identify “ten” as representing “all,” or in some cases “many” or “much.” The Ten Commandments represent all the guidance we get...
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...
first
Why would it be insulting for a man to refer to his married partner as his “first wife”? Because it implies there will be a...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Dove
A dove (Gen. 8.) signifies goodness and truth. A dove, as in Hosea 11:11, signifies rational good.
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...
resting-place
"Lodging place" is a tricky term to deal with, because there are several different terms in the original language which are translated several different ways...
place
'A room' or 'place' denotes state.
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...
Put
'To put' has reference to order, arrangement, application, and influx.
hand
Scientists believe that one of the most crucial developments in the evolution of humans was bipedalism – walking on two legs. That left our hands...
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,...
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
Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases – when it...
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...
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.
second
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...
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-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...
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...
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
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...
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....
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
Marriages in the Bible represent the union we all can have between the desire for good and the understanding of truth (or an understanding of...
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...
bring
As with common verbs in general, the meaning of “bring” is highly dependent on context, but in general it represents an introduction to a new...
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
"Birds" mean rational concepts in the external man and intellectual concepts in the internal man.
Well
'A well,' as in Numbers 21:17-18, signifies the Word of the ancient church. 'A well,' or 'pit,' as in Luke 14:5, signifies falsity and the...
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.
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...
built
There are really two meanings for "build" in the Bible. When something is being built for the first time, or built in the most typical...
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...
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...
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...
curse
The Lord is love itself, and his love for us never wavers and never changes. What does waver and change is the degree to which...
man
The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings – Conjugial Love or Love in Marriage –...
thought
Those who are 'anxious' are not content with their own lot, and do not trust the Divine, but only themselves. They only look to worldly...
youth
'Tender of age' denotes the state of truths newly received not yet genuine.
Smite
'To smite' signifies condemnation. 'To smite,' as in Genesis 14:15, signifies vindication. 'To smite,' as in Genesis 32:8, signifies destruction. 'To smite the earth with...
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...
time
Time is an aspect of the physical world, but according to Swedenborg is not an aspect of the spiritual world. The same is true of...
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...
Heat
Heat, as mentioned in Revelation 16:9, signifies the lust of evils which are contained in self-love and the delights of it.
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...
