243. The third living creature had a face like a human being. This symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom.

A human being in the Word symbolizes wisdom, because the human being was born to receive wisdom from the Lord and become an angel. The wiser someone is, therefore, the more human he is. True human wisdom consists in perceiving the existence of God, the nature of God, and what pertains to God. This is what the Divine truth of the Word teaches.

That a human being symbolizes wisdom is apparent from the following passages:

I will make a man more rare than fine gold, and a human being more rare than the gold of Ophir. (Isaiah 13:12)

A man means intelligence, and a human being wisdom.

...the inhabitants of the earth shall be burned up, and rare will be the human being left. (Isaiah 24:6)

...I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of a human being and the seed of an animal. (Jeremiah 31:27)

You are My flock...; you are humankind, I am your God. (Ezekiel 34:31)

...the ruined cities shall be filled with a flock of humankind. (Ezekiel 36:38)

I looked upon the earth when, lo, it was empty and void, and to the heavens when they had not their light... I looked when, lo, there was no human being... (Jeremiah 4:23, 25)

They sacrifice a human being, they kiss the calves. (Hosea 13:2)

He measured the wall (of the Holy Jerusalem): one hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a human being, which is that of an angel. (Revelation 21:17)

So, too, in many other places, where a human being symbolizes someone who is wise, and in an abstract sense, wisdom itself.

731. 'Wiping out everything ¹ I have made from over the face ² of the ground' means man's proprium, which is so to speak wiped out when he is being given life. This is clear from what has been stated already about the proprium. The human proprium is altogether evil and false. So long as it remains, a person is dead, but when he undergoes temptations, it is dispersed, that is, broken down and moderated by truths and goods from the Lord. In this way it is made alive and seems to be no longer present. Its apparent absence and causing no further harm is meant by 'being wiped out', though in fact it is in no way wiped out but remains. It is very similar to the behaviour of black and white. When these are variously modified by rays of light, they are converted into beautiful colours, such as blue, golden, and purple hues. By means of the latter, according to individual characteristics, as in the case of flowers, what is beautiful and pleasing is presented, although radically and fundamentally it is still the colours black and white. Now because the subject here is at the same time the final vastation of those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church, those who perished are meant as well by 'wiping out everything' I have made from over the face ² of the ground. ¹ This is also the case with verse 23 below. 'Everything I have made' is every thing, or every person who has celestial seed within him, that is, who belonged to the Church. This also is why in this verse, and in verse 23 below, the expression used is 'the ground', which means the member of the Church who has good and truth sown in him. And this grew more and more with those called Noah after evils and falsities had been dispersed, as stated already. But among the people before the Flood who perished, that seed was choked by tares.

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