3901. The church’s final stage is compared to eagles gathering around a carcass or body because eagles symbolize a person’s rational dimension. In relation to good people they symbolize true reason, but in relation to evil people they symbolize false reason, or sophistry. Birds in general symbolize a person’s thoughts, again in both [positive and negative] senses (§§40, 745, 776, 866, 991, 3219), and each species symbolizes something specific. Eagles fly high and have sharp eyes, so they symbolize rationality.

This symbolism can be seen from many passages in the Word. Let me quote the following ones for confirmation—first, those in which eagles symbolize true reason. In Moses:

Jehovah found his people in a wilderness land, and in emptiness, lamentation, wastelands. He enveloped them, instructed them, guarded them as the pupil of his eye. As an eagle stirs its nest, moves constantly over the chicks, spreads its wings, he takes them, carries them on his wing. (Deuteronomy 32:10, 11)

This passage depicts instruction in religious truth and goodness, using the simile of an eagle. The depiction and the simile cover the whole process to the point where we finally become rational and spiritual. All comparisons in the Word rely on symbolism. This one relies on the symbolism of an eagle as rationality.

[2] In the same author:

Jehovah to Moses: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and that I carried you on eagles’ wings to bring you to me.” (Exodus 19:3, 4) The meaning is similar.

In Isaiah:

Those waiting for Jehovah will be renewed with strength, will rise on a strong wing like eagles. They will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not become tired. (Isaiah 40:31)

Being renewed with strength means being increasingly able to will what is good. Rising on a strong wing like eagles means being increasingly able to understand what is true and consequently increasing in rationality. Here as elsewhere, the matter is expressed in two phrases, one involving goodness in the will, the other involving truth in the intellect. Likewise for running without growing weary and walking without becoming tired.

[3] In Ezekiel:

Utter a parable about the house of Israel and say, “This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: ‘A large eagle—long in its feathers, full of plumage, with embroidery—came upon Lebanon and took a cedar twig, brought it into a land of commerce, put it in a city of perfumers; it sprouted and became a luxuriant grapevine. There was another large eagle, great of wings and full of plumage, to which—look!—this grapevine applied its roots. And it sent its branches out to [the eagle, for the eagle] to water it from its planting beds, in a good field, near many waters; but it will be devastated. [Israel’s prince] sent his ambassadors to Egypt [demanding] that it give him horses and a large populace.’” (Ezekiel 17:2-9, 15)

The first eagle mentioned stands for reason enlightened by the Divine. The second eagle stands for reason rising out of human selfhood that becomes corrupted by false arguments based on sense impressions and factual knowledge. Egypt stands for facts (§§1164, 1165, 1186, 1462); horses, for an intellect composed of facts (§§2761, 2762, 3217).

[4] In Daniel:

Daniel’s vision: four beasts coming up out of the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, but it had an eagle’s wings. I was looking, until its wings were pulled off and it was lifted from the earth, and it drew up on its feet like a human, and a human heart was given to it. (Daniel 7:3, 4)

The lion with an eagle’s wings depicts the first stage of a religion, the eagle wings meaning rationality that rises out of human selfhood. When that rationality is taken away, we receive rationality and a will from the Divine, and this is symbolized by the beast’s rising from the earth, drawing up like a human on its feet, and being given a human heart.

[5] In Ezekiel:

The likeness of the faces of the four living creatures, or guardian beings: the face of a human, and the face of a lion on the right for the four of them, and the face of an ox on the left for the four of them, and the face of an eagle for the four of them. (Ezekiel 1:10)

Their wheels were called Galgal, and each had four faces; the first face was the face of a guardian being, and the second face was the face of a human, and the third was the face of a lion, and the fourth face the face of an eagle. (Ezekiel 10:13, 14)

In John:

Around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind; the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature having a face like a human, the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. (Revelation 4:[6,] 7)

Plainly the living creatures in these visions have some unknown, divine symbolism, so the likeness of their faces does too. Just what the secret meaning is cannot be seen unless the inner meaning of a lion, calf, human, and eagle is known. The eagle’s face obviously means watchfulness and therefore prudence, because the guardian beings (portrayed as animals in Ezekiel) symbolize the Lord’s providence making sure we do not rely on ourselves and our own rationality in exploring religious mysteries (see §308). So of course when an eagle is mentioned in reference to a human being, in an inner sense it means rationality. The reason for an eagle’s symbolism is that it flies high, looking down from above on a wide area below.

[6] In Job:

Is it owing to your intelligence that a hawk flies, that it spreads its wings toward the south? Is it at your word that an eagle soars and raises its nest aloft? (Job 39:26, 27)

The eagle plainly means reason, which is an aspect of intelligence. That is what an eagle symbolized in the ancient church—Job being a book of the ancient church (§3540 at the end). Almost all the books of that era were symbolic compositions, but over time the symbolism passed into oblivion. Eventually no one knew even that birds in general symbolize thoughts, despite frequent mention of them in the Word, where they obviously mean something other than birds.

[7] The negative symbolism of an eagle as rationality that is not true but false is clear from the following passages. In Moses:

Jehovah will raise over you a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies in—a nation whose tongue you cannot hear, a nation hard of face. (Deuteronomy 28:49, 50)

In Jeremiah:

Look: a cloud rises! And its chariots are like a windstorm; swifter than eagles are its horses. Alas for us, because we have been devastated! (Jeremiah 4:13)

In the same author:

Your boasting has deceived you, the pride of your heart—you who live in openings of rock, who occupy the height of a hill—because like an eagle you raise your nest aloft; from there I will throw you down. Look: like an eagle he rises and flies and spreads his wings over Bozrah; and the heart of the powerful of Edom on that day became like the heart of a woman in anguish. (Jeremiah 49:16, 17, 22)

In the same author:

Swifter were our pursuers than eagles. On the mountains they chased us; in the wilderness they lay in wait for us. (Lamentations 4:19)

In Micah:

Make yourself bald and shave yourself, over the children of your pleasures; broaden your baldness like the eagle because they have moved away from you. (Micah 1:16)

In Obadiah:

If you exalt yourself like an eagle, and if you put your nest among the stars, from there I will pull you down. (Obadiah verse 4)

In Habakkuk:

I am rousing the Chaldeans, a nation bitter and rash, invading the breadth of the land to inherit dwellings that are not theirs. Its horses are nimbler than eagles; its riders will come from a distance; they will fly forward like an eagle darting in to eat. (Habakkuk 1:6, 8)

[8] In these passages eagles symbolize falsity introduced by logic that is based on sensory illusions and superficial appearances. In the last quotation from the Prophets, the Chaldeans symbolize people with piety on the outside but falsity inside (see §1368). They, like Babylon, are the ones who devastate the church (1327). The breadth of the land means truth (3433, 3434), and invasion of the breadth of the land symbolizes the stripping away of truth. Horses mean the intellectual prowess of these people, which has the same character they do (2761, 2762, 3217). From this it is apparent why the eagle is darting in to eat: to strip humankind of truth (the ruination of the church being the current topic).

These things are merely compared to eagles, but to repeat, comparisons in the Word rely on symbolism.

This discussion now clarifies the meaning of the comparison with eagles who will gather around the carcass.