Fowl signify spiritual truth; a bird, natural truth; and a winged thing, sensual truth. Fowl of heaven, as in Hosea 2:18, signify the affections of truth; and reptiles of the earth, the affection of the knowledges of truth and good. Fowl signify thoughts, and all that creeps on the ground, the sensual principle. Fowl signify intellectual things.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 777; Hosea 2)

299. There are two arcana here: the first that 'Jehovah God' means the Lord and at the same time heaven, the second that if they had been instructed in mysteries of faith they would have perished forever.