54. Male and female He created them. What 'male and female' is used to mean in the internal sense was very well known in the Most Ancient Church, but when among later generations the interior sense of the Word was lost, so too was this particular arcanum. Marriages gave them their highest forms of happiness and delight; and they used to liken to a marriage anything that could be likened to it, in order that from it they might feel the happiness of marriage. And because they were internal men they took delight solely in internal things. As to external things, they did no more with them than take them in with their eyes, but their thoughts involved what those things represented - so much so that external things meant nothing to them except insofar as they could reflect internal things in them, and in those internal things reflect celestial things, and in so doing reflect the Lord, who was to them everything. Consequently they reflected the heavenly marriage in those things, which, they perceived, was the source of the happiness in their own marriages. For this reason they called the understanding in the spiritual man Male and the will Female, and when the two acted as one, they called it Marriage. From that Church sprang the common usage of referring to the Church itself, because of its affection for good, as 'a daughter', and also 'a virgin' - as in Virgin of Zion, Virgin of Jerusalem - and 'a wife' as well. On these matters however see verse 23 of the next chapter, and Chapter 3:15.

605. Verses 5-7. And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth unto the ages of the ages, who created heaven, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there shall be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God shall also be consummated, as he hath declared in good tidings to his servants the prophets.- "And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth," signifies the Lord, to whom all things of heaven and the church are subject; "lifted up his hand to heaven," signifies affirmation before the angels concerning the state of the church; "And sware by him that liveth unto the ages of the ages," signifies truth from his own Divine; "who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein," signifies the Lord as to all things interior and exterior; "of heaven and the church that there shall be time no longer," signifies that there would be no longer any understanding of Divine Truth, nor any state of the church therefrom. "But in the days [of the voice] of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound," signifies the last state of the church, and then revelation of Divine Truth; "the mystery of God shall also be consummated, as he hath declared in good tidings to his servants the prophets," signifies prediction in the Word concerning the coming of the Lord to be fulfilled when the end of the church is at hand.