38. Saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last." (1:11) This symbolically means, who is the one and only reality from firsts to lasts, from whom springs all else, thus who is the one and only love, the one and only wisdom, and the one and only life in itself, and so the one and only Creator, Savior and Enlightener from Himself, and therefore the all in all of the church and heaven, who alone is infinite and eternal, and Jehovah, and who is the Lord.

That these words contain all these ideas, and infinitely more, may be seen in nos. 13 and 29 above. We said there that in the spiritual world the characters or letters of the alphabet all have symbolic meanings, and that the Lord therefore describes His Divinity and infinity by alpha and omega, which symbolically mean that He is the all in all things of heaven and the church.

Since every letter has a symbolic meaning in the spiritual world and so in the language of angels, therefore David composed the 119th Psalm in a progression ordered according to the letters of the alphabet, beginning with aleph and ending with tau, as can be seen from the beginnings of the verses there. Something similar is seen in the 111th Psalm, but not so obviously.

On this account, too, Abram was called Abraham, and Sarai was called Sarah, which came to pass because in heaven Abraham and Sarah were not taken to mean those people, but something Divine, as is also the meaning, for H involves infinity, because it is simply an aspirate sound.

More on this subject may be seen in no. 29 above.

226. And the first voice that I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here." This symbolizes a Divine influx, resulting in an elevation of the mind and consequent clear perception.

When a voice is heard from heaven, it means Divine truth flowing in (see nos. 37, 50 above), thus a Divine influx. And a voice like a trumpet symbolizes a clear perception (see again no. 37 above). "Come up here," moreover, symbolizes an elevation of the mind, for in the spiritual world, the higher one ascends, the purer the light that he comes into, by which the intellect is progressively opened or the mind elevated. Consequently the statement also follows that John was then in the spirit, meaning that he was conveyed into a spiritual state, in which the things found in heaven clearly appear.

The voice sounded like a trumpet because the subject is the organization of the heavens for a last judgment. Moreover voices like trumpets are heard in heaven when assemblies and organizations are taking place. Consequently in the case of the children of Israel also, with whom everything was representative of heaven and the church, it was a statute that they make trumpets of silver, and that the sons of Aaron sound them to assemble the congregation; to decamp; on days of celebration; at festivals; at the beginnings of months; upon the offering of sacrifices; as a memorial; and to go to war (Numbers 10:1-10).

But we shall speak of trumpets and the sounding of them in our exposition of chapter 8, where the subject is the seven angels who were given seven trumpets.