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...
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...
visited
The end time of the church and each individual, is called 'the visitation,' and precedes judgment. 'Visitation' is nothing but an exploration of the quality...
sara
'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...
spoken
Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones – and ultimately...
bore
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...
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...
old
'Old waste places' signify the celestial aspects of faith.
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...
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...
called
'To proclaim' signifies exploration from influx of the Lord.
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...
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...
circumcised
Circumcision (Gen. 17:10) signifies purity.
eighth
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...
commanded
To command is to give an order that something must be done, and is directed to an individual, or a group. It is an imperative,...
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...
Father
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,...
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...
Laughter
Laughter' is an affection belonging to the rational mind and the affection for truth or for falsity within the rational. This affection is the source...
suck
To 'suckle' denotes taking in good, because 'a nurse,' or 'one who suckles' signifies implanting good. To 'suckle,' as in Genesis 21:7, signifies implanting the...
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;...
feast
There are two kinds of feasts mentioned in the Bible. Some were held to commemorate specific, one-time events, such as the feast Abraham held to...
day of
'Day of vengeance' signifies a state of damnation.
weaning
'To wean,' as in Genesis 21:8, signifies separation, as infants are from their mother’s breasts.
agar
Hagar, as mentioned in Genesis 16, signifies the affection of sciences of the outward self and also the life of the outer or natural self.
heir
'An heir,' as mentioned in Jeremiah 49:1, signifies the good that comes from truth. 'To become an heir, or to inherit,' signifies eternal life in...
Hearken
'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...
voice
In Genesis 27:22, 'voice' relates to truth, and 'hand,' to good.
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...
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...
rose 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...
morning
Morning comes with the rising of the sun, and the sun – which gives life to the earth with its warmth and light – represents...
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...
Put
'To put' has reference to order, arrangement, application, and influx.
boy
A boy (Gen. 18:7) signifies the natural man, and consequently, him who ministers and administers. Boy (Gen. 22:3) signifies the Lord's former rational principle merely...
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...
wilderness
'Wilderness' signifies something with little life in it, as described in the internal sense in Luke 1:80 'Wilderness' signifies somewhere there is no good because...
spent
'Spent,' as in Genesis 21:15, signifies being desolated.
under
Generally speaking things that are seen as lower physically in the Bible represent things that are lower or more external spiritually. In some cases this...
one
A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, line workers building them, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They...
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....
Bow
A bow signifies falsity of doctrine destroying truth, and spear, the falsity of evil destroying good. (Jer. 6:23.)
see
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...
die
Dead (Gen. 23:8) signifies night, in respect to the goodnesses and truths of faith.
sitting
If you think about sitting, it seems fair to say that where you're sitting is more important than that you're sitting. Sitting in a movie...
lifted
The idea of "lifting" is used in a number of different ways in the Bible. In general, it means connecting with a higher spiritual state...
wept
'Weeping with a loud voice' signifies the ultimate of grief.
angel
'A messenger' signifies communication.
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...
Fear not
Fear not, as in Revelation 1:17; Daniel 10:5, 12; Matthew 17:5, 7; 28:10, etc., signifies resuscitation to life, and at the same time adoration from...
fear
The fearful signify people who have no faith.
opened
To open,' as in Revelation 9, signifies communication and conjunction.
eyes
'Pairs of hands, eyes, etc.' relate to the will and understanding, or to good and truth. The right side to the will or good, and...
well
In Genesis 21, 'wells' signify doctrines, both those disputed and not disputed. Without this significance digging wells and disputing about them would have been too...
filled
There are two ways something can be filled: It can be filled with something bad against the wishes of its owner, or it can be...
dwelt
Inhabitants,' in Isaiah 26:9, signify the men of the church who are in good of doctrine, and thence in the good of life.
young
"Youths" or "Young men" generally represent intelligence or the understanding of truth. This is fitting, since adolescent boys tend to be more advanced intellectually than...
archer
'A shooter of the bow' or 'archer' signifies a member of the spiritual church, which can be understood from 'the shooter of a dart' or...
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...
land
'Lands' of different nations are used in the Word to signify the different kinds of love prevalent in the inhabitants.
egypt
'Mizraim' signifies the same thing as Egypt.
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...
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...
Phicol
'Phicol' represents the doctrinal matters of faith, as grounded in the literal sense of the Word.
army
A host and an army come from the same Hebrew word and mean the same thing in Bible; when the Children of Israel were numbered...
swear
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...
kindness
In regular language, "mercy" means being caring and compassionate toward those who are in poor states. That's a position we are all in relative to...
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...
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...
tell
'To tell' signifies perceiving, because in the spiritual world, or in heaven, they do not need to tell what they think because they communicate every...
sheep
A flock, as in Genesis 26, denotes interior or rational good. A flock signifies those who are in spiritual good. A flock signifies natural interior...
both
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...
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,...
dug
In general, digging in the Bible means applying your own mind, your own faculties to find or create spiritual things. This is reflected in common...
place
'A room' or 'place' denotes state.
planted
'To plant' denotes regeneration.
name of the lord
Names in the Bible are not simply names; they represent the qualities of the people who bear them. So the various names of the Lord...
eternal
'Perpetual' in the literal sense, means to the end of one’s life, after death, and eternity.
sojourner
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...
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...
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...
