lord
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...
the Lord
The Bible refers to the Lord in many different ways, which from the text seem indistinguishable and interchangeable. Understood in the internal sense, though, there...
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...
israel
Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to...
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...
the temple
'Solomon's temple' represents heaven and the church.
temple
'A temple' represents heaven and the church. The sacred place where the ark was, represents the inmost, or third heaven, and the church among people...
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...
saith
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...
many
Intellectual things – ideas, knowledge, facts, even insight and understanding – are more separate and free-standing than emotional things, and it’s easier to imagine numbering...
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...
hear
'To hearken to father and mother,' as mentioned in Genesis 28:7, signifies obedience from affection. 'To hearken,' as mentioned in Genesis 30:22, signifies providence. See...
poor
The poor, maimed, lame, and blind,' as in Luke 14:21, signify the uninstructed Gentiles who were in lives of good.
needy
In most cases, those described as "needy" in the Bible are those who lack true knowledge of the Lord and his teachings, but have a...
land
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...
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...
sabbath
In Exodus 31:13, 'verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep,' signifies continuous holy thought about the union of the Lord’s divine with His human.
open
To open,' as in Revelation 9, signifies communication and conjunction.
measure
'To measure' signifies knowing and exploring the quality of something.
deceitful
The spiritual meaning of being deceitful is pretty close to the literal meaning: According to the Writings it means using false thinking and logic to...
balances
The balances mentioned in Revelation 6:5 signify the estimation of goodness and truth.
money
'Silver,' in the internal sense of the Word, signifies truth, but also falsity. 'Silver' means the truth of faith, or the truth acquired from selfhood,...
shoes
In the Word, 'the sole of the foot' and 'the heel' signifies the ultimate natural. 'The shoe' is what clothes the sole of the foot...
sworn
The Lord swearing by himself signifies that divine truth testifies, for He is divine truth itself, and this testifies from itself and means itself. It...
pride
'Pride' signifies the love of self.
Jacob
Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to...
forget
To forget, in the internal sense, signifies nothing else but removal and apparent privation.
works
'Works,' as in Genesis 46:33, denote goods, because they are from the will, and anything from the will is either good or evil, but anything...
Every one
The phrase “Every one,” where it occurs in Genesis 20:7, signifies every thing or all things.
mourn
In a general sense, mourning in the Bible represents a state of grief over the lack of desires for good and true ideas about life....
dwelleth
'Inhabit' refers to good.
rise up
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...
rise
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...
river of Egypt
The Nile' or 'river of Egypt' represents the sensory things subject to the intellectual mind, and the scientific ideas which are derived from them. This...
egypt
Egyptians represent those who are in natural science, thus the natural, but the Hebrews, those who are of the church, thus respectively the spiritual. The...
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...
sun
The 'sun' signifies celestial and spiritual love. The 'sun' in the Word, when referring to the Lord, signifies His divine love and wisdom. Because the...
midday
'Noon' signifies the full state of the church. 'Noon' signifies wisdom in its most luminous state. 'Noon' denotes a state of light, because the times...
earth
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...
day of
'Day of vengeance' signifies a state of damnation.
light
In the Word, “light” in the highest sense represents Divine Truth: knowledge, ideas, understanding that come to us from the Lord. In lesser degrees...
turn
Swedenborg says that the Lord is the sun of heaven, and like the natural sun of our world shines on everyone, good or evil. What...
songs
'A song' signifies acknowledgment and confession from joy of heart.
lamentation
The children of Israel represent 'lamentation' by various things which signified some evil of the church among them for which they were punished. When they...
sackcloth
'A sack' in Genesis 42:25, means a receptacle, and here 'a receptacle' on the natural level, because it is a story about the truths and...
baldness
'A bald head' signifies the Word deprived of the natural sense, which is the sense of the letter.
head
The head is the part of us that is highest, which means in a representative sense that it is what is closest to the Lord....
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...
send
'To send' signifies revealing.
bread
Just as natural food feeds the natural body, so spiritual food feeds the spiritual body. And since our spiritual body is the expression of what...
water
'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...
hearing
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...
the Word
In general, we tend to be very aware of how knowing what's true leads to doing what is good. That starts as children, with parents...
word
'Word,' as in Psalms 119:6-17, stands for doctrine in general. 'The Word,' as in Psalms 147:18, signifies divine good united with divine truth. 'Word,' as...
Move
'To move' denotes living.
sea
'The sea and the waves roaring' means heresy and controversies in the church and individual.
north
'North' signifies people who are in obscurity regarding truth. North,' in Isaiah 14:31, signifies hell. The North,' as in Jeremiah 3:12, signifies people who are...
seeking
The meaning of "to seek" in the Bible is pretty straightforward, but there is a bit of nuance: Swedenborg tells us that in most cases...
find
Finding, or being found, can have different meanings in the Word, depending on the context. Here are two examples, From Arcana Coelestia 5756, 'Behold, the...
virgins
A ‘virgin’ in the Word means those who are in the Lord’s kingdom. –Secrets of Heaven 3081...
swear
'To sware' is a binding.
samaria
'Samaria,' as in Amos 4:1. 6:1, signifies the spiritual church perverted.
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...
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...
dan
The tribe of Dan (Jer. 8:16) signifies truth in its own ultimate degree of order, here truth in the church, which is contained in the...
way
These days we tend to think of "roads" as smooth swaths of pavement, and judge them by how fast we can drive cars on them....
fall
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...