1156. Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim were individual nations where this form of worship existed, and they symbolize individual doctrinal systems that consisted in rituals derived from the outward worship adopted by Javan. The following passages from the prophets demonstrate this.
Elishah comes up in Ezekiel:
Fine linen with embroidery from Egypt was what you spread out to serve you as a banner. Blue-violet and red-violet fabric from the islands of Elishah was your covering. (Ezekiel 27:7)
This describes Tyre, which symbolizes people who own heavenly and spiritual riches, or knowledge. Embroidery from Egypt stands for facts and so for ritual that represents spiritual traits. 1 Blue-violet and red-violet fabric from the islands of Elishah stands for ritual that corresponds to inward worship and so for ritual that represents heavenly traits. Elishah appears in its positive meaning here.
Of Tarshish, Isaiah says:
I will send some of them — escapees — to the nations Tarshish, Put 2 and Lud (drawing the bow), Tubal and Javan (the distant islands). (Isaiah 66:19)
[2] In the same author:
Howl, you ships of Tarshish, because Tyre has been wiped out, so that there is not a house to enter. This has been revealed to them from the land of Kittim. (Isaiah 23:1, 14)
There is more on Tarshish in Isaiah 60:9; Jeremiah 10:9; Ezekiel 27:12; and Psalms 48:7; and in these places it stands for ritual, or in other words, doctrinal affairs.
Kittim is mentioned in Jeremiah:
Go over into the islands of Kittim 3 and see, and into Arabia and pay close attention: has anything like this ever happened? (Jeremiah 2:10)
And in Isaiah:
He said, "You must no longer continue to gloat, oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Get up, go over to Kittim; even there you will have no rest." (Isaiah 23:12)
Kittim stands for ritual. In Ezekiel:
Of oaks from Bashan they made your oars; your planking they made of ivory — the daughter of steps 4 from the islands of Kittim. (Ezekiel 27:6)
This is about Tyre. Ship planking from the islands of Kittim stands for outward acts of worship — and so for ritual — belonging to the heavenly category. In Moses:
Ships [are coming] from the shore of Kittim, and they will harry Assyria, and they will harry Eber. (Numbers 24:24)
Here too Kittim stands for outward worship and so for ritual.
Such things go to show that on a deeper level all these names symbolize inner phenomena, arranged in their proper order.
Footnotes:
1. The "facts" that have to do with representative ritual are those that detail the representative meaning of ritual objects and actions. See §§1195, 1462, 4964, 4966, and other sections listed in §9688:3. [LHC]
2. For details on the reading of "Put" as opposed to "Pul," see note 1 in §1158. [Editors]
3. Josephus says that Kittim settled in Cyprus: "And from that it is that all islands, and the greatest part of the sea-coasts, are named Cethim [Kittim] by the Hebrews" (Josephus n.d., 40). [RS]
4. The Latin phrase here translated "the daughter of steps" (filiam gressuum) preserves the obscurity of the underlying phrase in the Hebrew original. [LHC]
