774. I have already stated and shown that every kind of wild animal symbolizes all spiritual goodness, every kind of beast all earthly goodness, and the creeping thing creeping on the earth all goodness on the sensory and bodily levels (§§45, 46, 142, 143, 246).

It may at first glance seem wrong to say that a wild animal symbolizes spiritual goodness, but look at the series of subjects. First to be mentioned are they (the people of the church), then the wild animal, the beast, and finally the creeping thing. The wild animal involves something more important and nobler than a beast, because the Hebrew word also means a living being, something with a living soul. In this verse, then, it does not mean a wild animal but a living creature with a living soul, since the word for both is the same. ¹

The symbolism of living creatures, beasts, and creeping things creeping on the earth as aspects of the will has been mentioned and demonstrated before. ² More evidence appears directly below, where birds are discussed.

Footnotes:

142. Genesis 2:19-20. And out of the soil Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every bird in the heavens and brought it to the human to see what he would call it. And whatever the human called the living soul, that was its name. And the human gave names to every beast and to the bird in the heavens and to every wild animal of the field; but for the human no aid was found that seemed to be his.

Animals symbolize emotions of a heavenly type; birds in the heavens symbolize emotions of a spiritual type. To put it another way, animals symbolize the contents of the will, birds the contents of the intellect. Bringing them to the human to see, so that he could call them by name, means granting humankind the ability to recognize the nature of those feelings; the fact that he gave them names means that people recognized the nature of the feelings. At the same time, even though they recognized the nature of the virtuous emotions and true concepts given them as gifts by the Lord, they still strove for autonomy, as expressed in the same words used before: he did not find an aid that seemed to be his.