Sons of Israel
'The camp of the sons of Israel' represents the church.
Sons
'Sons of Canaan,' as in Genesis 10, are people who kept external worship separate from internal.
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...
egypt
In the Bible, Egypt means knowledge and the love of knowledge. In a good sense that means knowledge of truth from the Lord through the...
man
The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings – Conjugial Love or Love in Marriage –...
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...
Reuben
'Reuben,' in the highest sense, signifies omniscience. In a spiritual sense, he signifies wisdom, intelligence, science, and faith. In a natural sense, he signifies sight....
Simeon
In Revelation 7, 'Simeon', in the highest sense, signifies providence, in a spiritual sense, love towards our neighbor, or charity, and in a natural sense,...
Levi
'Levi' signifies truth in practice, which is the good of life. 'Levi,' in the highest sense, signifies love and mercy, in a spiritual sense, he...
Judah
City of Judah,' as in Isaiah 40:9, signifies the doctrine of love towards the Lord and love towards our neighbor in its whole extent.
Issachar
Issachar,' in the highest sense, signifies the divine good of truth, and truth of good. In a spiritual sense, he signifies celestial conjugial love, which...
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...
Naphtali
'Naphtali' in a supreme sense, signifies the proper power of the Lord’s divine human. In a spiritual sense, he signifies temptation and victory and a...
Gad
Gad, in a supreme sense, signifies omnipotence; in a spiritual sense, the good of life, or use; and in a natural sense, works. Gad, in...
souls
The nature of the soul is a deep and complicated topic, but it can be summarized as "spiritual life," who we are in terms of...
Body
The body (Matt. 6:22), signifies the man (homo). "His body shall not remain all night upon the tree" (Deut. 21:23), signifies lest it should be...
Joseph
'The tribe of Zebulon' signifies the conjunction of people in the third heaven with the Lord, 'the tribe of Joseph,' the conjunction of people in...
died
'The soul going forth' and 'dying,' as in Genesis 35:18, signifies the extreme of temptation, which is when the old self dies and the new...
brothers
There are two ways "brother" is used in the Bible, ways that are still reflected in modern language. One denotes an actual blood relationship; the...
generation
To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people – it is a group that was...
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....
Fruitful
To be fruitful is predicated of goodnesses, and to be multiplied, of truths.
Mighty
Mighty,' as in Revelation 19:18, signify people who are educated about doctrine derived from the Word. By extension, 'mighty' signifies education or learning derived from...
Land
Land' in the Word, denotes the church, for the things which signify the church also signify the things relating to the church, for these constitute...
Filled
'To be satiated,' as in Revelation 19:21, signifies being nourished by lusts, and taking them in with delight.
king
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...
over
'Upon' or 'over' signifies being within.
know
Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases – when it...
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...
people
The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nation.” When it uses the term “nation,” it is talking about a group...
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...
Us
Because people are governed by angels and spirits, in Genesis 1:26 it says 'let us make man into our image.' But because the Lord alone...
multiply
'Spreading themselves on the earth,' as in Genesis 8:17, signifies the internal self operating on the external.
war
War in the Word represents the combat of temptation when what is good is assaulted by what is evil or false. The evil that attacks...
breaks
To “break” something creates an image that is much different from “attacking,” “destroying,” or “shattering.” It is less emotional, less violent in its intent; it...
enemies
An enemy in the Bible refers to people who are in the love of evil and the false thinking that springs from evil. On a...
Taskmasters
'Taskmasters' denote falsities which bind people in slavery.
built
To build something generally means to put together a variety of simpler pieces to make a useful and more complex structure, as to build a...
Cities
Cities of the mountain and cities of the plain (Jer. 33:13) signify doctrines of charity and faith.
Pharaoh
'Pharaoh' signifies scientific ideas, or the natural principle in general. 'Pharaoh' signifies false ideas infesting the truth of the church. Pharaoh,' in Genesis 40, represents...
Pithom
'Pithom or Ramses' denotes quality of doctrine from falsified truths.
Raamses
'The journey of the sons of Israel,' treated of in Exodus, denotes states of the life and their changes from beginning to end, and so...
Spread out
In Genesis 9:27, 'God spreading out Japheth' signifies his enlightenment. In a literal sense 'to spread out' signifies extending the borders, but in a spiritual...
Egyptians
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...
serve
Generally speaking, those who are at lower levels of an organization serve those at higher levels. Bosses boss and their employees serve; coaches devise strategy...
Lives
'Lives' is used in the plural, because of the will and understanding, and because these two lives make one.
Service
'Service' denotes everything beneath, which is subordinate and obeys, and so, truth being derived from good, and ministering to good.
Mortar
Untempered mortar,' as in Ezekiel 13:11, signifies the confirmation of falsity by fallacies, which makes falsity appear true. 'Stones of hail' are falsities.
field
When we have a desire to be good people and to do good things, the natural first questions are "What does that mean?" "What should...
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...
Hebrew
The term 'Hebrew' is used in the Word to signify anything relating to service, whatever its nature may be. Hence Abraham, in one passage only...
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...
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...
Midwife
'A midwife,' as in Genesis 26, signifies the natural level. Midwives,' as in Exodus 1:15-21, signify receptions of truth in the natural principle.
Women
'Women,' as in Genesis 45:19, signify the affections of truth. But in Genesis 31:50, 'women' signify affections of not genuine truth, so not of the...
see
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...
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...
kill
The Lord is love itself, and that love is the ultimate source of all energy and thus of all life. It follows, then, that the...
daughter
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...
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...
saved
To be saved or rescued means getting true ideas that we can hold to even in the face of a storm of false thinking. Sometimes...
called
To call someone or summon someone in the Bible represents a desire for conjunction between higher and lower states of life. For instance, imagine someone...
give
Like other common verbs, the meaning of "give" in the Bible is affected by context: who is giving what to whom? In general, though, giving...
before
In most cases, the meaning of "before" is pretty straightforward, both as a way of assessing relative time, and in its use meaning "in someone's...
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...
happened
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...
Families
Families (Gen 8:19) signify goodnesses and truths arranged in man by the Lord, according to order. Families have respect to truths. (Nahum 3:4)
cast
For something to be cast down or cast out generally refers to a rather dramatic move from a higher spiritual state to a lower one....
born
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...
the river
The river Gihon, as in Genesis 2:13, signifies the knowledge of all things relating to goodness and truth.
