1826. That 'he took a turtle dove and a fledgling' means those things that are [the representatives] of the spiritual things of the Church is clear from the meaning of birds in general, and of turtle doves and pigeons in particular. That 'birds' means spiritual things, which are more matters of faith or truth, and so means intellectual concepts and rational concepts, has been shown already in 40, 745, 776, 991; and that 'pigeons' means the goods and truths of faith, 870. And in addition to this, what the birds used in sacrifices meant is in the Lord's Divine mercy to be discussed later on where sacrifices are the subject. When in the Word, especially the Prophetical, celestial things are spoken of, so also are spiritual things spoken of, and thus the two are joined together, for one derives from the other, so that one belongs to the other, as stated already in 639, 680, 683, 707, 793, 810.

793. From this point onwards to the end of the present chapter the subject is the people before the Flood who perished. This becomes clear from the details in the description given. People who possess the internal sense can recognize instantly, and indeed from any single word, what the subject is, better still from the combination of many. When the subject changes different words instantly appear, or else the same words combined differently. The reason is that some words are peculiar to spiritual matters, others peculiar to celestial; or what amounts to the same, some are peculiar to things of the understanding, others to those of the will. For example, 'desolation' is a word used of spiritual things, 'vastation' of celestial; 'city' is used of spiritual, 'mountain' of celestial; and so on. The same applies to combinations of words. And what is bound to amaze everybody, the difference in Hebrew is frequently just a matter of vocalization. In what belongs to the class of spiritual words the first three vowels [of the alphabet] are normally prominent, but in the case of what is celestial the last two. The fact that these verses contain a different subject is also discernible from the repetition discussed already. That is to say, the statement, 'And the waters grew stronger and stronger over the earth', is a repetition of what has already been stated in the previous verse. It is also discernible from everything that follows.