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.