kings
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...
land
Is there any difference in meaning between “earth” and “ground”? At first it doesn’t seem so; both refer to the soil making up the land...
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....
israel
'Israel,' in Jeremiah 23:8, signifies the spiritual natural church. The children of Israel dispersed all the literal sense of the Word by falsities. 'The children...
smote
To strike or smite, when used in the Bible, means to attack, harm or destroy, and is usually in reference to an attack on someone’s...
side
'Side' signifies good or spiritual love.
jordan
The river Jordan separates the land of Canaan from the lands to the east. This separation represents the division of the human mind into an internal...
rising
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...
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...
river
A 'stream' signifies aspects of intelligence.
mount
'Hills' signify the good of charity.
Hermon
'The dew of Hermon' signifies divine truth.
plain
'A plain' signifies good and truth in the natural self, because 'the people who dwell in plains,' or 'beneath mountains and hills' are in the...
dwelt
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...
heshbon
In Isaiah 16:9, 'Jazer,' 'the vine of Sibmah,' and 'Heshbon and Elealeth,' signify the people of the external church, who explain the Word to favor...
middle
The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation...
half
Half and double in reference to numbers in the world have a similar signification as the numbers themselves.
Gilead
Gilead, as in Genesis 31:21, 23, was a boundary of the land of Canaan, in a wide sense. In the spiritual sense, it means "the...
border
Often translated as “edge,” “border,” “boundary,” “outskirts,” “far places” and other ways, this term is used in the Bible for the farthest reaches of an...
Ammon
The children of Ammon ('Jeremiah 49:1'), signify those who falsify the truths of the Word, and of the church.
sea
Water generally represents what Swedenborg calls “natural truth,” or true concepts about day-to-day matters and physical things. Since all water ultimately flows into the seas,...
salt
'Salt' is the desire of conjunction of truth with good, which is why only salt will conjoin water, which corresponds to truth, and oil, which...
way
In John 14:6, 'the way is doctrine,' 'the truth' is every thing pertaining to doctrine, and 'the life' is the essential good which is the...
under
In the Bible, things that are lower down, or under, physically, generally represent things that are lower or more external spiritually. In some cases, the...
Og
'Og, king of Bashan' signifies being in evils of every kind.
king of Bashan
'Og, king of Bashan' signifies being in evils of every kind.
giants
'The Rephaim' signify people who, above all others, were in the love of self, and so most completely natural. From the persuasion of their own...
moses
Moses's name appears 814 times in the Bible (KJV), third-most of any one character (Jesus at 961 actually trails David at 991). He himself wrote...
servant
“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...
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...
smite
To strike or smite, when used in the Bible, means to attack, harm or destroy, and is usually in reference to an attack on someone’s...
manasseh
'Manasseh' signifies the will of the spiritual church.
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...
joshua
Joshua, the son of Josedech the high-priest,' as in Zechariah 3:1, signifies the law, or the Word.
lebanon
'Lebanon' signifies spiritual good. 'Lebanon' signifies the church regarding the perception of truth from the rational self.
goeth
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...
Seir
'Seir,' as in Genesis 33:14, signifies the conjunction of spiritual and celestial things in the natural level, that is, the truth of faith with the...
tribes
In general, 'the twelve tribes' signify every aspect of the doctrine of truth and good, or of faith and love. Truth and good, or faith...
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...
plains
'A plain' signifies good and truth in the natural self, because 'the people who dwell in plains,' or 'beneath mountains and hills' are in the...
wilderness
'The wilderness of Sin,' as in Exodus 16, signifies the good from truth in a state of temptation.
south
In the Word, 'the south' or 'midday' means a state of light, which is a state of intelligence produced by truths, thus also an interior...
hittites
'A Hittite' in a good sense, signifies the spiritual church, or the truth of the church. The Hittites were among the upright Gentiles who were...
hivites
The Hivites' represent those who were in idolatry, but in which there was something of good.
Jebusites
Girgashites and Jebusites, as in Genesis 15:21, signify falsities derived from evils.
jericho
Jericho' signifies instruction and also the good of life because no one can be instructed in the truths of doctrine but he who is in...
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...
ai
Hai, or Ai, signifies light derived from worldly things.
bethel
When Jacob had his famous dream, of a staircase leading to heaven, he named the place "Bethel," which is Hebrew for "the house of God."...
jerusalem
Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in...
hebron
'Hebron' represents the Lord's spiritual church in the land of Canaan. 'Hebron' represents the church as to good.
Makkedah
'The cave of Makkedah,' as in Joshua 10:28, signifies dire falsity originating in evil.
hazor
'The inhabitants of Hazor,' as mentioned in Jeremiah 49:30, signify those who possess spiritual riches, which are the things of faith. 'Hazor,' as mentioned in...
megiddo
'Megiddo,' as in 2 Chronicles 3, signifies the same as Armageddon.
carmel
'Sharon, Bashan, and Carmel' signify the church regarding the knowledges of good and truth from the natural sense of the Word.
nations
The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nations.” When it uses “nation,” it is talking about a group with the...
gilgal
Gilgal signifies the doctrine of natural truth, serving for introduction into the church.
thirty
'Thirty' has a twofold significance because it is is the product of five and six, and also three and ten. From five multiplied by six,...
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