1613. Along its length and along its breadth symbolizes the heavenly aspect and the spiritual aspect, or to put it another way, what is good and what is true. (For the symbolism of length as something good and of breadth as something true, see the remarks above at §650.) 1 The reason for this meaning is that land symbolizes the kingdom of heaven or the church, neither of which can be said to have length or breadth. They have only the equivalents of length and breadth, or in other words, something that corresponds to these — namely, goodness and truth. The heavenly aspect or goodness is primary, so it is compared to length, but the spiritual aspect or truth is secondary, so it is compared to breadth.
[2] The fact that breadth is truth stands out fairly clearly in the prophetic portions of the Word. In Habakkuk, for instance:
I am raising up the Chaldeans, a nation bitter and swift, walking through the breadth of the land. (Habakkuk 1:6)
The Chaldeans stand for people whose thinking is distorted. Walking through the breadth of the land stands for destroying truth, since it is the Chaldeans who are said to do it. In David:
Jehovah, you did not shut me up in the hand of my enemy; you made my feet stand in a broad place. (Psalms 31:8)
Standing in a broad place means standing on the truth. In the same author:
In tight-bound anguish have I called on Jah; 2 he answers me with broad liberality. (Psalms 118:5)
Answering with broad liberality stands for answering truly. In Hosea:
Jehovah will pasture them like a lamb, in a broad place. (Hosea 4:16)
Pasturing an animal in a broad place stands for teaching truth.
[3] In Isaiah:
Assyria will go through Judah, he will flood in and pass over, he will reach all the way to their neck, and the spread of his wings will be the fullness of the land's breadth. (Isaiah 8:8)
Assyria stands for sophistry that will flood the land, or in other words, the church. His wings stand for arguments that lead to falsity. The full breadth stands for being full of falsity, or of ideas that oppose truth.
Since the length of the land symbolized goodness and its breadth symbolized truth, the New Jerusalem is described as having been measured and lying square, its length being as great as its width (Revelation 21:16). From this anyone can see that the sole meaning of length and width is [goodness and truth], since the New Jerusalem is purely and simply the Lord's kingdom in the heavens and on earth.
Once upon a time the inner-level symbolism of things made it common for people to speak of heavenly and spiritual qualities in terms of phenomena found on earth, such as length and breadth. Height and depth likewise form a part of modern everyday language when the subject is wisdom.
Footnotes:
1. At §650 Swedenborg equates length with holiness rather than with good. In that passage it is height instead that is connected with goodness. [LHC]
