273. Verse 5. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunders and voices, signifies illustration, understanding, and the perception of the Divine truth in the heavens from the Lord. This is evident from the signification of "lightnings, thunders, and voices," as predicated of Divine truth; "lightnings" referring to its illustration, "thunders" to its understanding, and "voices" to the perception of it; that these things are thereby signified will be made clear by passages in the Word where they are mentioned. But let something first be said in respect to the origin of these significations. All things that appear before the eyes of men in the visible heaven, as the sun, the moon, the stars, the air, the ether, light, heat, clouds, mists, showers, and many more, are correspondences; they are correspondences for the reason that all things in the natural world correspond to those in the spiritual world. These are also correspondences in heaven where the angels are, because like things are seen by them but there they are not natural but spiritual (as can be seen from what is shown respecting them in the work on Heaven and Hell, On the Sun and Moon in Heaven, n. 116-125; On Light and Heat in Heaven, n. 126-140; and in general, On the Correspondence of Heaven with all Things of the Earth, n. 103-115; and on Appearances in Heaven, n. 170-176), Therefore "lightnings" and "thunders" also are correspondences; and because they are correspondences, they have the like significance as the things have to which they correspond. Their significance in general is Divine truth received and uttered by the highest angels; which, when it descends to the lower angels sometimes appears as lightning, and is heard as thunder with voices. From this it is that "lightning" signifies Divine truth in respect to illustration; "thunder" Divine truth in respect to understanding; and "voices" Divine truth in respect to perception. It is said in respect to the understanding and in respect to the perception, since what enters into the mind through the hearing is both seen and perceived; seen in the understanding, and perceived through communication with the will. (What perception is, strictly, such as the angels in heaven have, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 140.)

[2] From this then it is that "lightnings" and "thunders" in the Word signify Divine truth in respect to illustration and in respect to the understanding, as can be seen from the following passages. In David:

Thou hast with Thine arm redeemed Thy people. The clouds poured out waters; the skies gave forth a voice; Thine arrows also went forth; the voice of Thy thunder into the world; the lightning lightened the world (Psalms 77:15, 17-18).

Here the establishment of the church is treated of; "the clouds poured out waters" signifies truths from the sense of the letter of the Word; "the skies gave forth a voice" (that is, the higher clouds), signifies truths from the spiritual sense of the Word; "the arrows that went forth" (meaning thunderbolts, from which there is an appearance as of arrows from a bow and which are present when there are thunders and lightnings) signify Divine truths; "the voice of thunder into the world" signifies Divine truth in respect to perception and understanding in the church; and "the lightnings lightened the world" signifies Divine truth in respect to illustration thence; "the world" signifies the church.

[3] In the same:

A fire shall go before Jehovah, and burn up His enemies round about; His lightnings shall lighten the world (Psalms 97:3-4).

From these words also it is clear that "lightnings" signify Divine truth in respect to illustration, for it is said "His lightnings shall lighten the world."

[4] In Jeremiah:

The Maker of the earth by His power, He prepareth the world by His wisdom, and by His intelligence stretcheth out the heavens; at the voice that He giveth forth there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He maketh the vapors to go up from the end of the earth, He maketh lightnings for the rain (Jeremiah 10:12-13; 51:16; Psalms 135:7-8).

Here again the establishment of the church is treated of. That "the voice of thunder" signifies Divine truth in respect to perception and understanding, and "lightnings" Divine truth in respect to illustration, can be seen from its being said, "The Maker of the earth prepareth the world by His wisdom, and by His intelligence stretcheth out the heavens;" and then, "at the voice that He giveth forth there is a multitude of waters in the heavens," and "He maketh lightnings for the rain;" "earth" and "world" signifying the church; "waters in the heavens" spiritual truths; "rain" these truths when they descend and become natural; "lightnings" their illustration.

[5] In the second book of Samuel:

Jehovah thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave forth His voice and sent forth His arrows and scattered them, lightning, and discomforted them (2 Samuel 22:14-15).

Thunders are here described by "thundering from heaven" and by "giving forth a voice," flying thunderbolts by "arrows," and all these signify Divine truths, and "lightning" their light; and as these vivify and illustrate the good, so they terrify and blind the evil, which is meant by "He sent forth arrows and scattered them, lightning, and discomfited them;" for the evil cannot bear Divine truths, nor any light at all from heaven, therefore they flee away at their presence.

[6] Likewise in David:

Jehovah thundered in the heavens, and the Most High gave forth His voice; and He sent forth His arrows and scattered them, and many lightnings and discomfited them (Psalms 18:13-14).

Lighten forth lightning and scatter them; send forth Thine arrows and discomfit them (Psalms 144:6).

That "thunders" and "lightnings" signify Divine truth in respect to the understanding and illustration is still further evident from the following passages.

In David:

In distress thou didst call and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place with thunder (Psalms 81:7).

In Revelation:

I heard one of the four animals saying, as with a voice of thunder, Come and see (Revelation 6:1).

Again:

And the angel took the censer and filled it from the fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth; and there followed thunders and voices and lightnings (Revelation 8:5).

Again:

The angel cried with a great voice, as a lion, and when he cried the seven thunders uttered their voices (Revelation 10:3-4

Again:

The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of the covenant; and there followed lightnings and voices and thunders (Revelation 11:19).

Again:

I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder (Revelation 14:2).

And again:

I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, as the voice of vehement thunders, saying, Alleluia; for the Lord our God, the Almighty, hath received the kingdom (Revelation 19:6).

Moreover, since "thunders" and "lightnings" signify Divine truths, when Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai to promulgate these truths:

There were voices and lightnings, and also the voice of a trumpet (Exodus 19:16).

That "the voice of a trumpet" signifies Divine truth in respect to revelation, see above (n. 55, 262);

A voice out of heaven to the Lord was heard as thunder (John 12:28-29).

That James and John were called Boanerges, sons of thunder (Mark 3:14, 17).

2242. That 'I will go down now, and I will see' means visitation becomes clear from the meaning of 'going down to see' as judgement, dealt with in Volume One, in 1311, and consequently as visitation. The final period of the Church in general and of the individual in particular is called visitation in the Word. It occurs prior to judgement, so that visitation is nothing else than an investigation into what such are like, that is, into the nature of the Church in general or of the individual in particular. Such investigation is expressed in the sense of the letter as Jehovah coming down and seeing.

[2] From this the nature of the sense of the letter is made clear, for Jehovah does not go down; indeed one cannot speak of the Lord going down because He always dwells in highest things. Nor does Jehovah look and see whether a thing is so; for one cannot speak of the Lord looking to see whether a thing is so because every single thing is known to Him from eternity. Yet the sense of the letter speaks of Jehovah going down to see because to man that is what He does appear to do. For man dwells among lowest things and when anything presents itself there he does not think about, nor does he even know, what the situation is with higher things and so does not know about how these flow in. He has no knowledge of these things because his thought does not extend beyond what is immediately about him, and therefore he cannot perceive what the Lord does as anything other than some such going down to see; and that perception is even more limited when he imagines that no one knows what he himself is thinking. Besides this, he has no other idea than that an actual coming down from on high is meant, and when said of God, from the highest. But it is not in fact a coming down from the highest but from the inmost.

[3] From this one may see what the sense of the letter is like, namely that it is shaped according to appearances, and that if it were not, nobody would understand and acknowledge the Word, nor thus accept it. But angels are not limited by appearances in the way that man is, and therefore since the Word as to the letter is for man, it is as to the internal sense for angels, and also for those men who in the Lord's Divine mercy have been allowed during their lifetime in the world to be as the angels.

[4] Visitation is mentioned in various places in the Word, where it either means the vastation of the Church or of the individual, or else deliverance, and thus the investigation into the nature of persons or things. It stands for vastation in Isaiah,

What will you do on the day of visitation? It will come from afar. To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your glory? Isaiah 10:3.

In the same prophet,

The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going out, and the moon will not shed its light. And I will visit the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. Isaiah 13:10-11.

'The stars and the constellations which will not give their light, and the sun which will be darkened, and the moon which will not shed its light' means that no love and no charity will exist, see 2120. And since this is vastation it is 'the day of visitation'.

[5] In Jeremiah,

They will fall among those who fall, and in the time of their visitation they will stumble. Jeremiah 8:12.

This stands for the time when they have been vastated, that is, when no charity and faith exist. In Ezekiel,

The visitations of the city have drawn near, and each man has his weapon of destruction in his hand. Ezekiel 9:1.

This too is a reference to vastation; consequently 'each man has a weapon of destruction'. In Hosea,

The days of visitation have come, the days of recompense have come. Hosea 9:7.

Here the meaning is similar. In Micah,

The day of your watchmen, your visitation, has come; now will be their confusion. Micah 7:4.

Here also it stands for charity that has been laid waste. In Moses, On the day of My visiting, I will visit them with their sin. Exodus 32:34.

This refers to the people in the wilderness after they had made themselves the golden calf. That visitation also means deliverance is evident from the following places, Exodus 3:16; 4:31; Jeremiah 27:22; 29:10; Luke 1:68, 78; 19:41-42.