Fish represent knowledge. Fish laid upon the fire, as in John 21:9, represent the reformation of the natural man by the good of love, of which description were all the men of that time, in consequence of the complete vastation of the church. Fish signify sensual affections which are the ultimate affections of the natural man. Fish sometimes also represent people in common truth or conversely in external falsity. Broiled fish, as in Luke 24:42, signify the truth of good relating to the natural and sensual man, and honeycomb, the good of the same truth. To make as the fishes of the sea, signifies to make altogether sensual. Fish, as in Habakkuk 1:14-16, signify people in faith separate from charity.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 405; Luke 24)

7. The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the Lord's mercy, is 'the Spirit of God hovering over the face ¹ of the waters'.

Footnotes: