10083. 'And you shall wave them as a wave offering before Jehovah' means the life from God which comes as a result of this. This is clear from the meaning of 'waving a wave offering' as endowing with life, thus the life [present in something]; and since it says from 'before Jehovah' the life from God is meant. The fact that 'waving a wave offering' means endowing with life, that is, imparting the life from God, is clear from places in the Word where 'waving a wave offering' is spoken of, as in Moses,

When you bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, so that you may be acceptable; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Leviticus 23:10-11.

'Harvest' means a state when the truth of faith springing from good exists, thus a state when good is present, 9295; 'a sheaf of the firstfruits' means all collectively constituting that state. 'Being waved by the priest' therefore means being endowed with life to receive a blessing; for every blessing, to be a blessing, must have life from God within it.

[2] In the same author,

Aaron shall wave the Levites before Jehovah as a wave offering ¹ from among the children of Israel, that they may be used in the service of Jehovah. You shall stand the Levites before Aaron and before his sons, and you shall wave them as a wave offering to Jehovah. After that the Levites shall go in to serve in the tent of meeting; and you shall purify them, and wave them as a wave offering. And when the Levites had been purified, Aaron waved them before Jehovah as a wave offering, and Aaron expiated them to purify them. Numbers 8:11, 13, 15, 21.

These verses show what 'waving a wave offering' means, namely endowing with life through acknowledgement, which is the first phase of faith, and so the first phase of life from God with a person. Knowledge, it is true, comes before acknowledgement, but knowledge has none of God's life within it until it becomes acknowledgement and then faith. The Levites represented truths serving good, while Aaron represented the good they served; that is why they were 'waved', that is, were endowed with life. This also accounts for its being said that they were to be purified. For truths must have life from God within them if they are to serve good, and that life first flows in through acknowledgement.

[3] Much the same is meant by 'a wave offering of gold' in Moses,

They came, the men with the women ... they brought brooches, nose-jewels, rings, girdles ² , all vessels of gold; and every man who waved a wave offering of gold to Jehovah. Exodus 35:22.

'Waving a wave offering of gold to Jehovah' means endowing with life through the acknowledgement that it was Jehovah's, that is, the Lord's. 'Waving a wave offering' means such things by virtue of what that action corresponds to; for every motion corresponds to a state of thought. In the Word therefore advancing, travelling on, and like movements mean states of life, see 3335, 4882, 5493, 5605, 8103, 8417, 8420, 8557.

[4] In John,

At the pool of Bethesda lay a large multitude of sick people; and an angel went down at a certain time to the pool and stirred up the water. Then whoever stepped in first after the movement of the water was cured of whatever disease he had. John 5:2-7.

'Stirring up the water' here was in like manner a sign of the endowment of life through acknowledgement and faith, and therefore also a sign of purification by means of truths.

'Movement' means states of life, see 2837, 3356, 3387, 4321, 4882, 5605, 7381, 9440, 9967.

'Water' means the truths of faith, 2702, 3058, 3424, 4976, 8568, 9323.

All purification is accomplished by means of the truths of faith, 2799, 5954 (end), 7044, 7918, 9088.

Healings represented the restoration of spiritual life, 8365, 9031 (end).

[5] Since 'the waving on Aaron's palms' means the endowment of life through acknowledgement of the Lord and the acknowledgement that all things come from Him, something brief must be stated with regard to that acknowledgement and resulting faith. The Lord often said, when sick people were being healed, that they should have faith, and, 'Let it be to you according to your faith', as in Matthew 8:10-13; 9:2, 22, 27-29; 13:57-58; 15:28; 21:21-22, 31-32; Mark 5:34, 36; 10:49, 52; 16:16; Luke 7:9, 48-50; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42-43. The reason why He said it was that the very first thing a person needs to do is to acknowledge that the Lord is the Saviour of the world; for unless he acknowledges this no one can receive any truth or good at all from heaven, or therefore receive faith from there. And since it was the very first and most essential thing, therefore in order that He might be acknowledged when He came into the world the Lord questioned the sick, when He healed them, about their faith; and those who had faith were healed. This faith was that He was the Son of God who was to come into the world, and that He had power to heal and save. Furthermore every healing of sickness by the Lord when He was in the world served to mean a healing of spiritual life, thus served to mean the things that belong to salvation, 8364, 9031(end), 9086.

[6] Since acknowledgement of the Lord is the first thing of all belonging to spiritual life and is the most essential feature of the Church, and since no one, unless he acknowledges Him, can receive any truth of faith or good of love at all from heaven, the Lord also often says that whoever believes in Him has eternal life, and whoever does not believe in Him does not have it, as in John 1:1, 4, 12-13; 3:14-16, 36; 5:39-40; 6:28-30, 33-35, 40, 47-48; 7:37-38; 8:24; 11:25-26; 20:30-31. But at the same time He also teaches that they have faith in Him who live according to His commandments, so that the life which results from doing so goes to compose their faith. These things have been stated to cast light on and corroborate the truth that acknowledging the Lord and acknowledging that all salvation comes from Him constitute the beginning of the life from God with a person. That beginning of it is meant by the offering waved on Aaron's palms.

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9441. The existence of a large number of worlds may be evident to anyone from the fact that so many heavenly bodies appear throughout the sky; that each one, as is well known in the learned world, resembles the sun in its own place, since each remains fixed in the same way as our planet's sun does in its own place, but that distance causes it to be seen as something small, as a point of light; and that consequently each has planets or earths around it in the same way as the sun of our world has. Why else does so vast a sky with so many constellations exist? The whole reason why the universe has been created and exists is mankind, from whom an angelic heaven may be formed. But what would the human race on only one planet be, and what would the angelic heaven formed from it be for the Infinite Creator? For Him a thousand planets - no, tens of thousands - would not be enough. The following calculation has been made. Supposing that there were a thousand thousand planets in the universe, on each planet three hundred thousand thousand or three hundred million people, two hundred generations in six thousand years, and the space each person was allowed was three cubic ells. ¹ If all these people were gathered together in one place the space they would fill would still be no more than a thousandth of our planet, and so would be less than the space filled by one satellite around the planet Jupiter or the planet Saturn. The space they filled in the universe would be small and hard to see, for those satellites are scarcely visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the universe, for whom the whole universe, even if it were full up, would not be enough, since He is Infinite? I have talked to angels about these matters. They have said that they have a similar conception of how few the members of the human race are compared with the infinity of the Creator, though their thinking is based not on notions of objects measured spatially, but on those of states, and that as they conceive the matter the planets numbering tens of thousands, as many as anyone could think of, would still be as absolutely nothing in relation to the Lord. In addition they have said that the angelic heaven, whose seed-bed is the human race, corresponds to everything within the human being, and such a heaven cannot be built up with angels from only one planet; it must be built up with those from countless planets.

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