When 'islands' are contrasted to 'earth' or 'mountains,' they signify the truths of faith, because they are in the sea. They signify doctrinal things which are rituals. 'Islands' signify peoples who are more remote from the worship of God. People who are steeped in the internal sense of the Word, such as angels, do not know what islands are, because they no longer have any concept of such places. Instead they have a perception of more remote worship, like the gentiles outside the church.

'Islands,' in Ezekiel 27:6, signify people in the church in a natural, materially-oriented state but still rational.

(참조: Apocalypse Explained 406; Isaiah 1, Isaiah 49, 49:1)

3306. 'And Isaac was a son of sixty years when she bore them' means the state of Rational Truth at that time. This becomes clear from what has been stated above about numbers in 3252, 3275. What the number 'sixty' entails however becomes clear from the simple numbers of which it is the product - from five and twelve, since five times twelve makes sixty (for the meaning of five, see 649, 1686, of twelve, 2372); also from six and ten, since six times ten makes sixty (for the meaning of six, see 720, 737, 900, and of ten, 576, 2284, 3107); from two and thirty as well, since two times thirty makes sixty (for the meaning of two, see 720, 900, 1335, 1686, and of thirty, 2276). Since the number sixty is the product in each of these multiplications of numbers, it embodies the things meant by such numbers in their order, all of which constitute the state experienced by the Lord's Rational at that time. Those things are displayed by the Lord in a clear light before the eyes of the angels, but before the eyes of men, especially of someone who does not believe that numbers in the Word have any meaning at all hidden within them, they cannot be disclosed, not only because of lack of belief but also because so many things contained in those numbers cannot be arranged into a sequence of ideas within man's mental grasp.