847. The symbolism of the waters receded off the earth, going and coming back, as vacillation between truth and falsity is established by earlier statements. I said that the flood water or deluges connected with Noah symbolized times of trial [§§705, 739, 756, 790], and since the subject here is the first state following trials, the waters that receded, going and coming back, can symbolize nothing else but a wavering between truth and falsity.

The nature of this wavering, though, cannot be known without a knowledge of what trials or "temptations" are. The type of struggle determines the type of vacillation afterward. When the trial involves heavenly qualities, the vacillation is between good and evil. When the trial involves spiritual qualities, the vacillation is between truth and falsity. And when the trial is earthly, the vacillation is between the things we crave and their opposites.

[2] There are many kinds of struggle. The general types are heaven-oriented, spiritual, and earthly, and it is important to avoid confusing them. Only those who love the Lord are subject to heaven-oriented trials. Spiritual trials come to those who have charity for their fellow human. Earthly tribulation has nothing to do with the other two kinds, and it is not really a trial, or temptation, but merely anxiety rising out of an attack on earthly kinds of love. The anxiety is stirred by misfortune, illness, or morbid constitution of the blood and the body fluids. ¹

This brief discussion can give some idea of what is involved in our trials: distress and anxiety over things that conflict with what we love. For those who love the Lord, whatever attacks love for the Lord produces deep pain, and this is trial on the heavenly plane. For those who love their neighbor, or in other words, those who feel charity, anything that attacks that love triggers the sting of conscience, and this is spiritual trial.

[3] But earthly trials, which many people call temptations (while they refer to the pain they feel as the pangs of conscience), are not temptations, or tests. They are merely an anxiety sparked by an assault on what they love. Examples are times when they worry that they will be, or feel that they have been, deprived of their position, worldly goods, reputation, physical pleasures, bodily life, and so on. Still, these experiences are apt to do some good.

For those who practice earthly charity — and so for all kinds of heretics, non-Christians, and idolaters — temptations or trials are also possible, resulting from attacks on the way they live their faith, which is precious to them. But these are just woes that mimic spiritual crises.

Footnotes:

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: