1024. The symbolism of with you as a spiritual person who has been reborn is established by a plethora of earlier statements to the effect that Noah and his sons symbolize a spiritual church that took the place of the earliest, heavenly church [§§597-598, 605, 726, 765, 788:1, 851]. Since they symbolize a church, they symbolize every member of that church and so a spiritual person who has been reborn.

851. The symbolism of the ark came to rest as rebirth can be seen from this, that the ark symbolizes the people of this church, and everything in the ark symbolizes what those people had inside them, as shown frequently above [§§602, 638-658, 667-681, 713-726, 740-751, 764-784, 811]. When the ark is said to have come to rest, then, the meaning is that the same people were regenerating.

The literal story line does indeed seem to suggest that the settling of the ark symbolizes an end to the wavering (discussed at the last verse) that followed their trials. The wavering, however, which is doubt and confusion about truth and goodness, does not end here but lasts a long time, as will also become clear below. ¹

This shows that the inner sense always has some other implication; and since that implication is unknown, let me reveal it here. After spiritual people have endured tribulation, they too become the Lord's rest, just as the heavenly person does, and they also become a seventh thing — not the seventh day, as the heavenly person does, but the seventh month. Concerning the heavenly person as the Lord's Sabbath rest and as the seventh day, see §§84-88. Since there is a difference between heavenly and spiritual people, though, the original language uses a word meaning "Sabbath" for the heavenly person's repose and another, from which the name Noah comes and which more strictly means "rest," for the spiritual person's repose. ²

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