761. 18:5 "For her sins have mounted even to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities." This symbolically means that their evils and falsities infest the heavens, but the Lord will protect the heavens from being violated by them.

Her sins having mounted even to heaven means symbolically that their evils and falsities infest angels in heaven. God's remembering her iniquities means symbolically that the Lord will protect the heavens from being violated by them.

This is the symbolic meaning of these words, because everything in the heavens is good and true, and everything in the hells is evil and false. The heavens and hells are therefore completely apart and in an inverse situation, like antipodes. Consequently evils and falsities cannot mount to the heavens. But still, when evils and falsities increase beyond the degrees of opposition and so beyond a just measure, the heavens are infested, and unless the Lord protects the heavens then, which He does by a stronger influx emanating from Him, violence is done to the heavens. And when this reaches its peak, He then executes a last judgment and so liberates them.

So we are told later in this chapter, "Rejoice over her, O heaven..., for God has visited your judgment on her!" (verse 20) - an exultation expressed in the following chapter, Revelation 19:1-9. And in Jeremiah:

Then the heavens and the earth shall sing over Babylon, and all that is in them, when the plunderers shall come upon her... (Jeremiah 51:48)

In Genesis 1:24, beasts signify the things of man's will or loves. (Arcana Coelestia 44, 46)

In Genesis 9:10, beasts signify all that was living in the man of the Ancient Church, and also what belonged to his new will; likewise the lower things of his understanding and the will therefrom. (Arcana Coelestia 1026-1029)

In Psalm 104:20, beasts signify affections longing to be instructed, or spiritually nourished. (Apocalypse Explained 650[10])

In Luke 10:35, since the beast was a donkey, this signifies to instruct another according to his capability. (Apocalypse Explained 1154)

The beast of the south (Isaiah 30:6) signifies people who are principled in the knowledges of good and of truth, but do not apply them to life and instead to science.

Every beast and creeping thing (Genesis 8:19) signifies the goodnesses of the internal and external man.

"Beasts" represent the affection for doing good things, a true desire to do them from the heart. In the negative sense, "beasts" stand for the lust to do evil.

The beast ascending out of the sea (Revelation 13:1) signifies reasonings from the natural man confirming the separation of faith from life.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 13, 773; Revelation 13:11)