2. Horses are often mentioned in the prophetic books of the Word, ¹ but until now no one has been aware that a horse means understanding and its rider means someone who is intelligent. This is perhaps because it seems strange and bewildering to say that a horse has this kind of meaning when spiritually understood, and therefore has this kind of meaning in the Word. There is support for this, however, in many passages in the Word, of which I should like here to cite only a few.

In Israel’s prophecy about Dan:

Dan will be a serpent on the way, a darting serpent on the path, that bites the horse’s heels, and its rider falls backward. (Genesis 49:17, 18)

No one will understand the meaning of this prophecy about one of the tribes of Israel who does not know the meaning of a serpent and of a horse and a rider. No one can fail to know, though, that something spiritual is involved. You may see what these particular things mean in Secrets of Heaven 6398, 6399, 6400, 6401, where this prophecy is explained.

In Habakkuk:

God, you are riding on your horses; your chariots are salvation. You walked through the sea with your horses. (Habakkuk 3:8, 15)

We can see that horses here mean something spiritual because these things are being said of God. Otherwise, what would be involved in God riding on his horses and walking through the sea with his horses?

The same holds true for Zechariah 14:20: “On that day ‘Holiness belongs to Jehovah’ will be engraved on the bells of the horses”; and for Zechariah 12:4, 5: “‘On that day,’ says Jehovah, ‘I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with madness. I will open my eyes on the house of Judah and strike every horse of the people with blindness.’” This is about the purging of the church that happens when there is no longer any understanding of what is true, so it is described in terms of horse and rider. Otherwise, what would be involved in striking every horse with confusion and striking every horse of the people with blindness? What does this have to do with the church?

In Job:

[Because] God deprived [the ostrich] of wisdom and did not endow her with understanding, when she lifts herself up on high, she scorns the horse and its rider. (Job 39:17, 18, 19, and following)

Here it is obvious that the horse means understanding. This is also the case in David when it speaks of “riding on the word of truth” (Psalms 45:4) and in many other passages.

Further, who would know why Elijah and Elisha were called “the chariot of Israel and its cavalry” and why Elisha’s servant saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire if they did not know what a chariot and a cavalry mean and what Elijah and Elisha represent? For Elisha said to Elijah, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its cavalry” (2 Kings 2:11, 12); and King Joash said to Elisha, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its cavalry” (2 Kings 13:14); and it says of Elisha’s servant, “Jehovah opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).

The reason Elijah and Elisha were called the chariot of Israel and its cavalry is that both represent the Lord as the Word, the chariot meaning a body of teaching drawn from the Word and the cavalry meaning understanding. On Elijah and Elisha as representing the Lord as the Word, see Secrets of Heaven 5247, 7643, 8029, 9372; and on a chariot as meaning a body of teaching drawn from the Word see §§5321, 8215.

Footnotes:

4534. 'The Grand Man and Correspondence' is continued at the end of the next chapter.

1813. 'He reckoned it to him as righteousness' means that in this the Lord first became righteousness. This too becomes clear from the train of thought in the internal sense, in which the Lord is the subject. That the Lord alone became righteousness for the sake of the whole human race becomes clear from the consideration that He alone has fought out of Divine Love, that is to say, out of love towards the whole human race, whose salvation, that and nothing else, He desired and longed for in His conflicts. The Lord was not born righteousness as regards the Human Essence but became righteousness through the conflicts brought about by temptations and through victories, something He achieved by His own power. And as often as He fought and won the victory, this was reckoned to Him as righteousness, that is, it was added to the righteousness He was becoming, as an increase to it every time, until He became perfect righteousness.

[2] When one who is begotten from a human father, that is, from the seed of a human father, fights for himself, he cannot possibly do so out of any other love than love of self and love of the world, thus not out of heavenly love but out of hellish, for such is the nature of the proprium he possesses from his father in addition to the proprium he has acquired by his own actions. Consequently the person who imagines that he fights the devil from himself is grossly mistaken. So too the person who wishes to make himself righteous by his own powers, that is, to believe that the goods of charity and the truths of faith come from himself, and consequently to merit heaven through them, is acting and thinking contrary to the good and truth of faith. For it is a truth of faith, that is, it is the truth itself, that the Lord is the one who does battle. Thus because he is acting and thinking contrary to a truth of faith, he deprives the Lord of what is His and makes what is the Lord's his own; or what amounts to the same, he replaces the Lord with himself and so with that in himself which is from hell. It is for this reason that people wish to become great or the greatest in heaven, and thus it is that they believe quite wrongly that the Lord fought against the hells so that He might be the greatest. The human proprium has delusions such as these within it which have all the appearance of being truths but which are quite the reverse.

[3] That the Lord came into the world so as to become righteousness, and that He alone is righteousness, was also foretold by the Prophets. Thus it was possible to know of this even before His Coming, and also to know that He could not become righteousness except by means of temptations and victories over all evils and over all the hells, as in Jeremiah,

In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell with confidence. And this is His name which they will call Him. Jehovah our Righteousness. Jeremiah 23:6.

In the same prophet,

In those days and at that time I will cause a shoot of righteousness to sprout forth for David, and he will execute judgement and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell with confidence. And this is what they will call Him, Jehovah our Righteousness. Jeremiah 33:15-16.

In Isaiah,

He saw and there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor, and His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him. And He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon His head. Isaiah 59:16-17.

And see especially Isaiah 63:3, 5. 'His own arm' stands for His own power. Since the Lord alone is righteousness, the expression a habitation of righteousness is also used, in Jeremiah 31:23; 50:7.