981. God blessed symbolizes the Lord's presence and favor, as can be seen from the symbolism of blessing.

In the Word, ¹ on its surface, blessing people means enriching them with every earthly, personal benefit. This is how the Word is interpreted by all who restrict themselves to its surface meaning — Jews of the past and present, for instance, and Christians as well, today especially. ² So they have identified and continue to identify divine blessings with wealth, an abundance of every resource, and glory for themselves.

In a deeper sense, though, blessing people means enriching them with every kind of spiritual and heavenly goodness. As the Lord is the only one who grants this kind of blessing, or is even capable of granting it, the act of blessing symbolizes the Lord's presence and favor. The Lord's presence and favor carry such a blessing with them.

[2] The word presence is used because only in charity is the Lord present, and the subject here is a regenerate spiritual person, who acts out of charity. The Lord is present in each of us, but the further we distance ourselves from neighborly love, the more the Lord's presence is absent, so to speak — which is to say, the more remote the Lord is.

The word favor is used rather than mercy because of something I believe is unknown today: people of heavenly character speak not of favor, [or grace,] but of mercy, while those of spiritual character speak not of mercy but of grace. ³ The reason for the difference is this: Heavenly people acknowledge that the human race is sheer filth, that in itself it is made of excrement and is hellish. On this account they beg the Lord for mercy, since mercy is the fitting word for people who feel this way.

[3] Spiritual people, on the other hand, might know intellectually that the human race is such, but they do not accept it internally, because they hold fast to their sense of self-sufficiency and love it. As a consequence, they have a hard time saying the word mercy but an easy time saying grace. This results from the type of humility in each of the two.

The more we love ourselves and consider ourselves capable of doing good on our own in order to earn salvation, the less able we are to plead for the Lord's mercy. The reason some are able to ask the Lord's grace, [or favor,] is that it has become a customary way of speaking. When the request is merely formal, grace contains little of the Lord, but is full of oneself. You can examine this in yourself, when you call on the Lord's grace.

Footnotes:

1. Genesis

THE Word in the Old Testament ¹ contains secrets of heaven, and every single aspect of it has to do with the Lord, ² his heaven, the church, faith, and all the tenets of faith; but not a single person sees this in the letter. In the letter, or literal meaning, people see only that it deals for the most part with the external facts of the Jewish religion.

The truth is, however, that every part of the Old Testament holds an inner message. ³ Except at a very few points, those inner depths never show on the surface. The exceptions are concepts that the Lord revealed and explained to the apostles, such as the fact that the sacrifices symbolize the Lord, ⁴ and that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem symbolize heaven (which is why it is called the heavenly Canaan or Jerusalem [Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:16; 12:22; Revelation 21:2, 10]), as does paradise. ⁵

Footnotes:

3540. And the hides of goats’ kids she caused to be put symbolizes the shallower truth belonging to familial goodness. This can be seen from the symbolism of hides as what lies on the surface (discussed below) and from that of goats’ kids as the truth belonging to familial goodness, since they came from a family flock. The latter symbolism was discussed at §§3518, 3519, which also show what familial goodness and the truth that grows out of it are. Every kind of goodness has its truth and every truth its goodness, and they need to unite if they are to amount to anything.

Hides symbolize what lies on the surface because they form the outermost covering of an animal, the outer boundary of its inward parts, just as the layers of skin do in a human being.

They take their symbolism from a representation in the other world: There are individuals there belonging to the region of the skin, who will be discussed where the universal human is described at the ends of the following chapters, by the Lord’s divine mercy. They are those who focus exclusively on superficial goodness and the truth that goes with it. So the skin, and also a hide, symbolizes what lies on the surface. This stands out clearly in the Word, as in Jeremiah:

Because of the abundance of your wickedness, the fringes of your skirt have been lifted to expose you, your heels have been violated. Will Ethiopians change their skin, and leopards, their spots? Even you can do good, schooled as you are in doing evil. (Jeremiah 13:22, 23)

The fringes are superficial truth; the heels are the shallowest forms of goodness. For the meaning of the heel and shoes as the lowest earthly factors, see §§259, 1748. Since this truth and goodness come from evil, as the text says, they are compared to black Ethiopians and their skin, and to leopards and their spots.

[2] In Moses:

If you go so far as to take your companion’s garment as collateral, before the sun sets you shall restore it to him, because it alone is his covering; it is his garment used as a hide, in which he must lie down. (Exodus 22:26, 27)

All laws in the Word, both civil and criminal, correspond to the laws of goodness and truth in heaven and were laid down from heaven, so the same is true of this one. Otherwise it would be impossible to figure out why before the sun set they had to restore a garment taken as collateral and why it says that it is his garment used as a hide, in which he must lie down. The correspondence becomes clear from the inner meaning, which is that we are not to defraud our companions of the shallower truth that makes up the doctrines they live by and their rituals. For the meaning of a garment as this kind of truth, see §§297, 1073, 2576. The sun means the resulting goodness that they love or live by (§§1529, 1530, 2441, 2495). Not letting it die out is symbolized by restoring the garment before the sun sets. Since that truth is the outer covering or border of something deeper, the text says that the garment is “used as a hide, in which he must lie down.”

[3] Since hides symbolized something superficial, it was commanded that the tabernacle covering be made of red rams’ hides, and on top of them, badgers’ hides (Exodus 26:14). The tabernacle represented the three heavens and therefore the heavenly and spiritual qualities found in the Lord’s kingdom. The curtains surrounding it represented earthly qualities, which are outward traits (§3478), which in turn are the rams’ and badgers’ hides. Superficial traits are what sheathe inward ones—

earthly traits are what sheathe spiritual and heavenly ones—just as a body cloaks its soul; and that was the reason for the command. Again, whenever the [Israelites’] camp set out on a journey, Aaron and his sons would cover the ark of the testimony with the curtaining veil and put on it a blanket of badger hide. On the table [for the bread] and everything atop it, they would spread a cloth of double-dyed scarlet and cover it with a blanket of badger hide. They would put the lampstand and all its utensils under a blanket of badger hide. And all the utensils for ministry they would put under a cloth of blue-violet and cover them with a blanket of badger hide (Numbers 4:5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12). Anyone who thinks reverently about the Word can see that all these articles represented divine attributes. The ark, the table, the lampstand, and the utensils for ministry did, and so did the coverings of double-dyed scarlet and blue-violet and the blankets of badgers’ hide, which represented the outer parts of the divine dimension.

[4] The prophets represented people who teach and consequently scriptural teachings about goodness and truth (§2534). Elijah represented the Word itself (§2762), as did John [the Baptist], who is therefore called the Elijah who was to come (Matthew 17:10, 11, 12, 13). So in order to represent the Word as it is outwardly, or in its literal text, Elijah was girded at his hips with a belt of hide (2 Kings 1:8), and John had clothing of camel’s hair and a belt of hide around his hips (Matthew 3:4).

Hide and skin, then, symbolized superficial things—which earthly things are by comparison with what is spiritual and heavenly. So since it was customary in the ancient church to speak and write symbolically, hide and skin have the same symbolism in Job, a book of the ancient church. This can be seen from several places in Job, including this:

I know my Redeemer; he is alive and in the end will rise over the dust, and afterward all this will be wrapped in my skin, and from my flesh I will see God. (Job 19:25, 26)

Being wrapped in skin stands for being wrapped in the earthly element we take with us after death, as described in §3539.

Seeing God from one’s flesh means seeing him from a sense of one’s autonomy brought to life. For this symbolism of flesh, see §§148, 149, 780. As just mentioned, Job’s representational, symbolic manner of writing shows it to be a book of the ancient church, but it is not among the books called the Law and the Prophets, because it does not have an inner meaning dealing exclusively with the Lord and his kingdom. This is the only criterion for a true book of the Word.