In the Word, girdles, belts, or sashes (as in Exodus 28:4) stand for good external goals that link the things in our hearts and minds into a state of cooperation and oneness of purpose. 'And a belt' means a common bond to ensure that everything has the same end in view. (Arcana Coelestia 9828) A second meaning is mentioned in Arcana Coelestia 9944, that belts or girdles can create distinct layers, in a way: "a separation from the outward things is also meant is that the bond gathers and holds together within itself the inward things; and this also separates them from the outward ones." In a way, the whole point of trying to accept the Lord and align ourselves with His love and His leading is so that we can express what is good in life -- actually doing things in the world that really benefit other people. These external acts are the lowest form of goodness, but they are the culmination of the higher forms. This has a bonding effect: a whole chain of desires for good and true ideas come together in external action. In some cases, girdles are used to cover the genitals. Since the genitals represent the love of marriage, these girdles represent the external good things that support marriage on all its levels: the marriage of husbands and wives, the marriage of what is good and what is true in each of us as individuals, and the ultimate marriage between each of us and the Lord.

In Revelation 1:13, as another example, there's a description of "one like unto the son of man", who is "girded about the breasts with a golden girdle," symbolizing the "emanating and conjoining Divinity which is Divine good." (Apocalypse Revealed 46)

46. And girded about the breasts with a golden girdle. This symbolizes the emanating and at the same time conjoining Divinity which is Divine good.

The golden girdle has this symbolism because the Lord's breast, and specifically the nipples there, symbolize His Divine love. Therefore the golden girdle which encircled them symbolizes the emanating and at the same time conjoining Divinity, which is the Divine goodness of Divine love. Gold, too, symbolizes goodness (see no. 913 below).

A girdle or sash in the Word symbolizes a common bond which holds everything in order and connection. For example, in Isaiah:

There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse..., and righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and truth the girdle of His loins. (Isaiah 11:1, 5)

The rod coming forth from the stem of Jesse is the Lord.

It may be seen in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), published in London, nos. 9837 and 9944, that the girdle of Aaron's ephod and the belt of his tunic symbolized conjunction.

Since a girdle symbolizes a bond conjoining the goods and truths of the church, therefore when the church with the children of Israel was destroyed, Jeremiah the prophet was commanded to buy himself a sash and put it on his loins, and then hide it in a hole in a rock by the Euphrates. And when, at the end of many days, he recovered it, behold, it was ruined and profitable for nothing. (Jeremiah 13:1-12) This represented that the goodness of the church had then come to nothing, with its truths therefore gone.

A sash has the same symbolic meaning in Isaiah 3:24, in the phrase, "instead of a sash, a rent." And so also elsewhere.

That nipples or paps symbolize Divine love is apparent from passages in the Word where they are mentioned, and from their correspondence with love.