377. Verses 7-8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a pale horse; and he that sat upon him his name was Death, and hell followed with him. And there was given unto them power over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

7. "And when he had opened the fourth seal," signifies prediction still further manifested (n. 378); "I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying," signifies out of the inmost heaven from the Lord. n. 379); "Come and see," signifies attention and perception (n. 380).

8. "And I saw, and behold a pale horse," signifies the understanding of the Word then become nought in consequence of evils of life and then of falsities therefrom n. 381; "and he that sat upon him," signifies the Word (n. 382); "his name was Death, and hell followed with him," signifies eternal damnation (n. 383); "and there was given unto them power over the fourth part of the earth, to kill," signifies the loss of every good and thence of every truth from the Word, and in consequence, in the doctrine of their church from the Word n. 384; "with sword," signifies by falsity (n. 385); "and with famine," signifies by the loss, lack, and ignorance of the knowledges of truth and good (n. 386); "and with death," signifies the consequent extinction of spiritual life (n. 387); "and by the wild beasts of the earth," signifies the evils of life or lusts and falsities therefrom springing from the love of self and of the world, which devastate all things of the church with man n. 388.

2691. 'God heard the boy's voice' means help at that point. This is clear from the meaning in the internal sense of 'God hearing the voice 'the words used in the historical sense - as bringing help, and from the meaning of 'the boy' as spiritual truth, dealt with already. Here a state is meant in which the spiritual as regards truth existed, for it is said that 'He heard the boy's voice' and soon after in this verse that 'He heard the boy's voice where he was', that is to say, where he was as to state. And, in the explanations of the verses immediately before, this state was shown to be one of utmost grief because truth had been taken away. The reason it was the boy's voice, not Hagar's, that God is said to have heard is that the state of the spiritual man is the subject. 'The boy', or Ishmael, represents the member of the spiritual Church, 'Hagar his mother' the affection for cognitions of truth, it being within this affection that the grief was felt. Man's rational is born from the affection for factual knowledge as a mother, 1895, 1896, 1902, 1910, 2094, 2524, but his spiritual is born from the affection for cognitions of truth acquired from doctrine, chiefly from the Word. Here the spiritual itself is 'the boy', and the affection for cognitions of truth is 'Hagar'.