790. The symbolism of water here and below as falsity is established by the passages dealing with a flood of water that were cited from the Word in the prefatory section of this chapter and at verse 6 [§§705, 739]. The quotations in those two places show that floods of water symbolize times of desolation and trial, which carry the same consequences as false notions, since desolation and trial are nothing but deluges of the falsities stirred up by evil spirits. The symbolism of flood water as falsities comes from the general meaning of water in the Word as something spiritual, that is, as the things we truly understand, grasp rationally, and know about. Because water symbolizes these things, it also symbolizes their opposites, since every falsity, being a matter of thought, is a "fact," so to speak, and seems capable of being grasped rationally and understood.

The symbolism of water as things that are spiritual can be seen from many places in the Word. ¹ In support of its symbolism as falsity, though, I offer the following in addition to previous quotations. ²

[2] In Isaiah:

This people spurned the waters of Shiloah, which go gently. Therefore (look, now!) the Lord is bringing up over them the waters of a river, strong and abundant; and it will come up over all their brooks and go on all their banks. (Isaiah 8:6-7)

The waters going gently stand for things that are spiritual, waters strong and abundant for things that are false. In the same author:

Doom to a land casting shadow with its wings, ³ a land across the rivers of Cush, that sends ambassadors onto the sea and [puts them] in rattan vessels on the face of the water. Go, speedy envoys, to a nation marked out and trampled, whose land the rivers plunder. (Isaiah 18:1-2)

Here they stand for the falsities that belong to a "land casting shadow with its wings."

[3] In the same author:

When you cross through the water, I will be with you, and [when you cross] through the rivers, they will not drown you. (Isaiah 43:2)

The water and rivers stand for difficulties and for falsities. In Jeremiah:

Why should you go to Egypt to drink the waters of the Sihor? And why should you go to Assyria to drink the waters of the river? (Jeremiah 2:18)

The waters stand for the falsities produced by crooked reasoning. In the same author:

Who is this who rises like a river, whose waters churn like rivers? Egypt rises like a river, and like rivers its waters churn, and it said, "I will go up; I will cover the land; I will destroy the city and those living in it." (Jeremiah 46:7-8)

The waters stand for the falsities produced by crooked reasoning.

[4] In Ezekiel:

This is what the Lord Jehovih has said, "When I turn you into a devastated city, like cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up over you the abyss, and many waters cover you, and I make you go down with those going down into the pit ..." (Ezekiel 26:19-20)

The waters stand for evil and the falsity it engenders. In Habakkuk:

You trod the sea with your horses, the mud of many waters. (Habakkuk 3:15)

The waters stand for falsity. In John:

The dragon hurled water like a river from its mouth after the woman to cause her to be swallowed up by the stream. (Revelation 12:15-16)

The water here stands for falsities and lies. In David:

Put out your hands from high up, rescue me and free me from the many waters, from the hand of a foreigner's children, whose mouth speaks a lie, and their right hand is the right hand of falsity. (Psalms 144:7-8)

The many waters clearly stand for falsities. A foreigner's children also symbolize falsities.

Footnotes:

680. Everyone can see that goodness and truth are a person's genuine food. Anyone deprived of them is dead, not living. The kinds of food that our souls feed on when we are [spiritually] dead are the pleasures of evil and the gratifications provided by falsity; these are lethal foods. So are the pleasures and satisfactions afforded by bodily, worldly, and earthly things, which have no inherent life.

What is more, people devoid of life have no idea what spiritual and heavenly food is. They are so ignorant on this score that every time the Word mentions food or bread, they suppose it means physical food. Take, for instance, the phrase from the Lord's Prayer, Give us daily bread; they think this refers only to the nourishment of the body, or if their thinking stretches any further, they allow that it also includes the body's other needs, such as clothing, riches, and so on. They even argue bitterly against the notion that any other kind of food is meant. Yet they see clearly that the words before and after this phrase have to do only with heavenly and spiritual concerns and that the Lord's kingdom is the subject of the prayer. They are also capable of grasping that the Word of the Lord is spiritual and heavenly.

[2] From this circumstance and others like it, the extent to which people today focus on the body is obvious enough. So is their desire (like that of Jews) to interpret everything the Word says as dealing with the crudest of material concerns. ¹

The Lord himself teaches plainly what food and bread mean in his Word. Of food he speaks this way in John:

Jesus said, "Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts to eternal life, which the Son of Humankind gives you." (John 6:27)

Of bread he says in the same author:

Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that came down from heaven so that a person could eat of it and not die. I am the living bread who came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, that person will live forever. (John 6:49-50, 51, 58)

Some today say, as those who heard this did,

"This saying is hard. Who can listen to it?" And they backed away and no longer walked with him. (John 6:60, 66)

The Lord told them:

The words that I am speaking to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)

[3] In similar fashion, water symbolizes the spiritual aspects of faith. The Lord speaks of it this way in John:

Jesus said, "Anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink the water that I give them will never be thirsty to eternity. Instead, the water that I give them will become a spring of water gushing up in them to provide eternal life." (John 4:13-14)

People do exist today, however, who resemble the woman the Lord talked to by the spring, when she answered,

Lord, give me this water, to keep me from being thirsty and coming here to draw! (John 4:15)

[4] Many passages in the Word establish that food there stands only as a symbol for spiritual and heavenly nourishment, which is faith in the Lord and love. In Jeremiah, for instance:

The enemy has stretched its hand out over every pleasant thing in Jerusalem. Because she has seen the nations, they have come into her sanctuary, about which you commanded, "They shall not come into your assembly." All the people are groaning, looking for bread. They have exchanged what is pleasant to them for food to revive their soul. (Lamentations 1:10-11)

These words mean no other bread or food than a spiritual kind, since they deal with the sanctuary. In the same author:

I called out to my lovers; they deceived me. My priests and my elders expired in the city, for they had tried to find food for themselves and would have brought their soul back [to life]. (Lamentations 1:19)

The meaning is similar. In David:

All of them wait for you to give them their food in its season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they receive abundant good. (Psalms 104:27-28)

This too stands for spiritual and heavenly food.

[5] In Isaiah:

Everyone who is thirsty, come to the water, and whoever does not have silver, come, buy and eat! And come, without silver and without the price buy wine and milk! (Isaiah 55:1)

The wine and milk stand for spiritual and heavenly drink. In the same author:

The young woman will conceive and deliver a child, and you shall call his name Immanuel. He will eat butter and honey, in order to know to spurn what is evil and choose what is good. It will happen on account of the abundance of milk-making that they will eat butter, since butter and honey are what everyone who is left in the middle of the land will eat. (Isaiah 7:14-15, 22)

Eating honey and butter is taking nourishment that is heavenly and at the same time spiritual. Those left in the land stand for remnants [of goodness and truth]. Malachi also discusses these:

Bring all tithes to the treasure house, so that there may be food in my House. (Malachi 3:10)

Tithes stand for remnants. For more on the symbolism of food, see §§56-58, 276.

Footnotes: