2177. That 'meal of fine flour' means the spiritual and celestial ingredients [of the rational] which were present at that time with the Lord, and 'cakes' the same when both had been joined together, is quite clear from the sacrifices of the representative Church and from the minchah presented at the same time, which consisted of fine flour mixed with oil and made into cakes. Representative worship consisted primarily in burnt offerings and sacrifices. What these represented has been stated above where 'bread' was the subject, in 2165, namely the celestial things of the Lord's kingdom in heaven and of the Lord's kingdom on earth, which is the Church, and also the things of the Lord's kingdom or Church as it exists with every individual, and in general everything that is in essence love and charity, since these are celestial entities. In those times all the sacrifices were called 'bread'. Along with those sacrifices a minchah was included - which, as has been stated, consisted of fine flour mixed with oil to which also incense was added - and also a wine-offering.

[2] What these latter represented becomes clear too, namely things similar to those represented by sacrifices but of a lower order, thus the things which belong to the spiritual Church, and also those which belong to the external Church. It may become clear to anyone that such things would never have been prescribed unless they had represented Divine things, and also that each one represented some specific thing. For unless they had represented Divine things they would have been no different from similar things found among gentiles, among whom also there were sacrifices, minchahs, libations, and incense, as well as perpetual fires and many other things which had come down to them from the Ancient Church, especially from the Hebrew Church. But because they were separated from the internal, that is, the Divine things represented by them, those external forms of worship were nothing but idolatrous, as they also came to be among the Jews, who likewise sank into all kinds of idolatry. From this it may become clear to anyone that heavenly arcana were present within every form of ritual, especially so within the sacrifices and every detail of them.

[3] As regards the minchah, the nature of it and how it was to be made into cakes is described in a whole chapter in Moses - in Leviticus 2; also Numbers 15, and elsewhere. The law regarding the minchah is described in Leviticus in the following words,

Fire shall be kept burning unceasingly on the altar; it shall not be put out. And this is the law of the minchah: Aaron's sons shall bring it before Jehovah to the front of the altar, and he shall take up from it a fistful of fine flour of the minchah and of the oil of it and all the frankincense which is on the minchah, and he shall burn it on the altar; it is an odour of rest for a memorial to Jehovah. And the rest of it Aaron and his sons shall eat. Unleavened bread shall be eaten in a holy place. In the court of the tent of meeting shall they eat it. It shall not be cooked leavened; I have given it as their portion from My fire-offerings; it is most holy. Leviticus 6:13-17.

[4] The fire which was to be kept burning unceasingly on the altar represented the Lord's love, that is, His mercy, which is constant and eternal. 'Fire' in the Word means love, see 934, and therefore 'the fire-offerings made for an odour of rest' means the good pleasure which the Lord takes in those things that belong to love and charity. That 'odour' means good pleasure, that is, that which is pleasing, see 925, 1519. Their 'taking a fistful' represented their being required to love with all their soul or strength, for 'the hand' or 'the palm' of the hand means power, as shown in 878, from which 'the fist' also means the same. 'The fine flour together with the oil and the frankincense' represented all things of charity - 'fine flour' the spiritual ingredient of it, 'oil' the celestial, and 'frankincense' that which was in this manner pleasing. That 'fine flour' represents the spiritual ingredient is evident from what has just been stated and from what is stated below. That 'oil' represents the celestial ingredient, or the good or charity, see 886, and that 'frankincense' on account of its odour represents that which is pleasing and acceptable, 925.

[5] Its being 'unleavened bread' or not fermented means that it was to be genuine, thus something offered from genuineness of heart and having no uncleanness. The eating of the rest by Aaron and his sons represented man's reciprocation and his making it his own, and thus represented conjunction by means of love and charity; and it is for this reason that they were commanded to eat it 'in a holy place'. Hence it is called something most holy. These were the things which were represented by the minchah. It was also the way in which the representatives themselves were perceived in heaven; and when the member of the Church understood them in the same way his ideas were like the perception which the angels possess, so that he was in the Lord's kingdom in heaven even though he was on earth.

[6] For more about the minchah - what it was to consist of in any particular kind of sacrifice; the way in which it was to be baked into cakes; what kind was to be offered by those who were being cleansed, and also what kinds on other occasions (all of which would take too long to introduce and explain here) - see what is said about it in Exodus 29:39-41; Leviticus 5:11-13; 6:16-17, 19-21; 10:12-13; 23:10-13, 6, 17; Numbers 5:15 and following verses; 6:15-17, 19-20; 7: in various places; 28:5, 8, 9, 12-13, 20-21, 28-29; 29:3-4, 9-10, 14-15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 37

[7] 'Fine flour made into cakes' had in general the same representation as bread, namely the celestial ingredient of love, while 'meals represented its spiritual ingredient, as becomes clear in the places indicated above. The loaves which were called 'the bread of the Presence' or 'the shewbread' consisted of fine flour, which was made into cakes and placed on the table to provide an unceasing representation of the Lord's love, that is, of His mercy, towards the whole human race, and man's reciprocation. These loaves are spoken of in Moses as follows,

You shall take fine pour and bake it into twelve cakes; two-tenths [of an ephah] shall there be in one cake And you shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the clean table before Jehovah. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, and it shall be bread serving as a memorial, a fire-offering to Jehovah. Every sabbath day [Aaron] shall set it out in order before Jehovah continually; it is from the children of Israel as an eternal covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, for it is to him the most holy of fire-offerings to Jehovah, by an eternal statute. Leviticus 24:5-9.

Every item and smallest detail mentioned here represented the holiness of love and charity, 'fine flour' having the same representation as meal of fine flour, namely that which is celestial and that which is spiritual that goes with it, and 'cake' the two when joined together.

[8] From this it is clear what the holiness of the Word is to those who possess heavenly ideas, and indeed what holiness was present within this particular representative observance, on account of which it is called 'most holy'. It is also clear how devoid of holiness the Word is to those who imagine that it does not have anything heavenly within it and who keep solely to externals. Exemplifying the latter are those who in the present verse under consideration perceive 'the meal' to be merely meal, 'the fine flour' merely fine flour, and 'the cake' merely a cake, and who imagine that these things have been stated without each one that is mentioned embodying something of the Divine within it. Their attitude is similar to that of those who imagine that the bread and wine of the Holy Supper are no more than a certain religious observance that does not have anything holy within it. Yet in fact it possesses such holiness that the minds of men are linked by means of it to the minds of those in heaven, when from an internal affection they think that the bread and wine mean the Lord's love and man's reciprocation, and by virtue of that interior thought and affection they abide in holiness.

[9] Much the same was implied by the requirement that when the children of Israel entered the land they were to present as a heave-offering to Jehovah a cake made from the first of their dough, Numbers 15:20. The fact that such things are meant is also evident in the Prophets, from' among whom for the moment let this one place in Ezekiel be introduced here,

You were adorned with gold and silver, and your raiment was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You became exceedingly beautiful, and attained to a kingdom. Ezekiel 16:13.

This refers to Jerusalem, by which is meant the Church, which Church in its earliest days bore an appearance such as this, that is to say, the Ancient Church, which is described by means of raiment and many other adornments. Its affections for truth and good are also described by 'the fine flour, honey, and oil'. It may become clear to anyone that all these details mean in the internal sense something altogether different from what they do in the sense of the letter. And the same applies to Abraham's saying to Sarah, 'Take quickly three measures of meal of fine flour, knead it, and make cakes'. That 'three' means things that are holy has been shown already in 720, 901.

2165. That 'I will take a piece of bread' means something heavenly or celestial to go with [that something natural] is clear from the meaning of 'bread' as that which is celestial, dealt with already in 276, 680, 681, 1798. The reason 'bread' here means that which is celestial is that bread means all food in general, and so in the internal sense all heavenly or celestial food. What celestial food is has been stated in Volume One, in 56-58, 680, 681, 1480, 1695. That 'bread' means all food in general becomes clear from the following places in the Word: One reads of Joseph telling the man in charge of his house to bring the men, that is, his brothers, into the house, and then to slaughter what needed to be slaughtered and made ready. And after that, when these things had been made ready and the men were to eat them, he said, Set on bread, Genesis 43:16, 31, by which he meant that the table was to be made ready by them. Thus 'bread' stood for all the food that made up the entire meal. Regarding Jethro one reads that Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God, Exodus 18:12. Here also 'bread' stands for all the food that made up the entire meal. And regarding Manoah, in the Book of Judges,

Manoah said to the angel of Jehovah, Let us now detain you, and let us make ready a kid before you. And the angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, If you detain me I will not eat your bread. Judges 13:15-16.

Here 'bread' stands for the kid. When Jonathan ate from the honeycomb the people told him that Saul had commanded the people with an oath, saying,

Cursed be the man who eats bread this day. 1 Samuel 14:27-28.

Here 'bread' stands for all food. Elsewhere, regarding Saul,

When Saul sat down to eat bread he said to Jonathan, Why has not the son of Jesse come either yesterday or today, to bread? 1 Samuel 20:24, 27.

This stands for coming to the table, where there was food of every kind. Regarding David who said to Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son,

You will eat bread at my table always. 2 Samuel 9:7, 10.

Similarly regarding Evil-Merodach who said that Jehoiachin the king of Judah was to eat bread with him always, all the days of his life, 2 Kings 25:29. Regarding Solomon the following is said,

Solomon's bread for each day was thirty cors ¹ of fine flour, sixty cors of meal, ten fatted oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen, and a hundred sheep, besides harts and wild she-goats and roebucks and fatted fowl. 1 Kings 4:22-23.

Here 'bread' plainly stands for all the provisions that are mentioned.

[2] Since then 'bread' means every kind of food in general it consequently means in the internal sense all those things that are called heavenly or celestial foods. This becomes even clearer still from the burnt offerings and sacrifices that were made of lambs, sheep, ² she-goats, kids, he-goats, young bulls, and oxen, which are referred to by the single expression bread offered by fire to Jehovah, as is quite clear from the following places in Moses where the various sacrifices are dealt with and which, it says, the priest was to burn on the altar as the bread offered by fire to Jehovah for an odour of rest, Leviticus 3:11, 16. All those sacrifices and burnt offerings were called such. In the same book,

The sons of Aaron shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God, for it is the fire-offerings to Jehovah, the bread of their God, that they offer. You shall sanctify him, for it is the bread of your God that he offers. No man of Aaron's seed who has a blemish in himself shall approach to offer the bread of his God. Leviticus 21:6, 8, 17, 21.

Here also sacrifices and burnt offerings are referred to as 'bread', as they are also in Leviticus 22:25. Elsewhere in the same author,

Command the children of Israel, and say to them, My gift, My bread, for fire-offerings of an odour of rest, you shall take care to offer to Me at their appointed times. Numbers 28:2.

Here also 'bread' stands for all the sacrifices that are mentioned in that chapter. In Malachi,

Offering polluted bread on My altar. Malachi 1:7.

This also has regard to sacrifices. The consecrated parts of the sacrifices which they ate were called 'bread' as well, as is clear from these words in Moses,

The person who has touched anything unclean shall not eat any of the consecrated offerings, but he shall surely bathe his flesh in water, and when the sun has set he will be clean. And afterwards he shall eat of the consecrated offerings, because it is his bread. Leviticus 22:6-7.

[3] Burnt offerings and sacrifices in the Jewish Church represented nothing else than the heavenly things of the Lord's kingdom in heaven, and of the Lord's kingdom on earth, which is the Church. They also represented the things of the Lord's kingdom or Church as it exists with every individual; and in general they represented all those things that are composed of love and charity, for those things are celestial or of heaven. In addition each type of sacrifice represented some specific thing. In those times all of the sacrifices were called 'bread', and therefore when the sacrifices were abolished and other things serving for external worship took their place, the use of bread and wine was commanded.

[4] From all this it is now clear what is meant by that 'bread', namely that it means all those things which were represented in the sacrifices, and thus in the internal sense means the Lord Himself. And because 'bread' there means the Lord Himself it means love itself towards the whole human race and what belongs to love. It also means man's reciprocal love to the Lord and towards the neighbour. Thus the bread now commanded means all celestial things, and wine accordingly all spiritual things, as the Lord also explicitly teaches in John,

They said, Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to Him, Lord, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am the Bread of life he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. John 6:31-35.

And in the same chapter,

Truly I say to you, He who believes in Me has eternal life. I am the Bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the Bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living Bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this Bread he will live for ever. John 6:47-51.

[5] Now because this 'Bread' is the Lord it exists within the celestial things of love which are the Lord's, for the Lord is the celestial itself, because He is love itself, that is, mercy itself. This being so, 'bread' also means everything celestial, that is, all the love and charity existing with a person, for these are derived from the Lord. People who are devoid of love and charity therefore do not have the Lord within them, and so are not endowed with the forms of good and of happiness which are meant in the internal sense by 'bread'. This external symbol [of love and charity] was commanded because the worship of the majority of the human race is external, and therefore without some external symbol scarcely anything holy would exist among them. Consequently when they lead lives of love to the Lord and of charity towards the neighbour, that which is internal exists with them even though they do not know that such love and charity constitute the inner core of worship. Thus in their external worship they are confirmed in the kinds of good which are meant by 'the bread'.

[6] In the Prophets as well 'bread' means the celestial things of love, as in Isaiah 3:1, 7; 30:23; 33:15-16; 55:2; 58:7-8; Lamentations 5:9; Ezekiel 4:16-17; 5:16; 14:13; Amos 4:6; 8:11; Psalms 105:16. Those things are in a similar way meant by 'the loaves of the Presence' on the table, referred to in Leviticus 24:5-9; Exodus 25:30; 40:23; Numbers 4:7; 1 Kings 7:48.

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