The Bible in its literal sense – the words we see, the stories we read – is a sort of container for the divine things the Lord wants to teach us. In a way, that makes it a container for the Lord himself. Elisha, like the other prophets, represents the Bible in its role as a container for the Lord and His lessons. In particular, Elisha – who wore soft clothing, counseled kings, could see spiritual things and frequently performed miracles of healing – represents the loving, caring, nurturing and healing lessons the Lord offers us in the Bible.

8367. 'And they came to Elim' means a state of enlightenment and affection, and so a state of comfort after temptation. This is clear from the meaning of 'Elim'; as with all the other places to which the children of Israel came, it embodies and has as its meaning the state and essential nature of the reality to which it refers, see 2643, 3422, 4298, 4442. In this instance a state after temptation is meant, which is a state of enlightenment and affection, and so of comfort. Every spiritual temptation is followed by enlightenment and affection, and so by feelings of pleasure and delight, pleasure as a result of enlightenment through truth, delight as a result of affection for good.

[2] For the fact that comfort follows temptations, see 4572, 5246, 5628, 6829; and the reason why is that through temptations truths and forms of good are instilled and linked together, as a result of which inwardly, as to his spirit, a person is brought into heaven and to heavenly communities among which he has not been before. Once a temptation is completed, contact with heaven, contact which previously was partially shut off, is opened up. Enlightenment and affection, and consequently pleasure and delight, result from this, because the angels with whom he is now in contact enter in by means of truth and by means of good. The enlightenment through truth and the pleasure this gives are meant by 'twelve springs of water', since truths are meant by 'springs'; and an affection for truth arising from good and the delight this affords are meant by 'seventy palm trees', spoken of in what comes next.