729. The symbolism of rainfall as the trials themselves can be seen from the remarks and supporting quotations introducing this chapter [§705]. They showed that a flood or a deluge of water — which is what this rain was — symbolizes not only trials but also devastation. The meaning will also be clear from what is said about the Flood in the sections to follow.
Secrets of Heaven #705
705. Inner Meaning
THIS chapter speaks in detail of the Flood, which does not symbolize simply the trials that people in the church called Noah had to endure before they could be reborn; it also symbolizes the ruination of those who could not be reborn.
The Word compares both trial and ruination to floods of water, and it also calls them floods directly.
Trial. In Isaiah:
"For a short moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you back. In a flood of anger I hid my face from you a moment, but with eternal mercy will I have mercy on you," your redeemer, Jehovah, has said. "For to me it is [like] the waters of Noah, to whom I swore that the waters of Noah would no longer pass over the earth. So have I sworn that I would not rage against you or censure you. Afflicted one, and storm-tossed, and not finding comfort!" (Isaiah 54:7-8, 9, 11)
This is about the regenerating church and about times of trial, which are called the waters of Noah.
[2] The Lord himself also calls our struggles a flood in Luke:
Jesus said, "Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and does them is like a person building a house. The person dug and went down 1 deep and set a foundation on the rock. For this reason, when a flood took place, the river struck that house but was not strong enough to dislodge it, since it was founded on rock." (Luke 6:47-48)
Anyone can see that the flood here means times when we are tested.
Ruination. In Isaiah:
The Lord is bringing up over them the waters of a river, strong and abundant: the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he comes up over all their brooks and will go over all their banks, and he will go through Judah. He will flood in and pass over; he will reach all the way to their neck. (Isaiah 8:7-8)
The king of Assyria stands for delusions, for falsities adopted as premises, and for faulty reasoning based on them, which ruin us and which ruined the people living before the Flood.
[3] In Jeremiah:
This is what Jehovah has said: "Look! Water climbing from the north; and it will become a flooding river and will flood the earth and its abundance, the city and those living in it." (Jeremiah 47:2-3)
This is about Philistines, representing those who seize on false premises and use them as a basis for reasoning about spiritual matters. False premises and warped reasoning drown a person, as they did the pre-Flood people.
The Word uses floods of water as a simile and a metaphor for times of both trial and ruin because these are similar phenomena. During them, evil spirits stream in with their persuasive lies and false assumptions and arouse the same kind of thinking in us. With a person who is regenerating these agitations are trials; with one who is not regenerating, they bring ruination.
Footnotes:
1. The translation here is based on reading "went down" (penetravit) for the first Latin edition's "goes down" (penetrat). Elliott (Swedenborg [1749-1756] 1983-1999) also adopts the past tense for this verb in his translation. [LHC]
