As the finest of the grains, wheat fittingly represents the finest of spiritual food, what Swedenborg calls "the good of love and charity" – which is the desire for good that springs from love of the Lord and love of serving others.

From a nutritional standpoint, wheat is packed with complex carbohydrates, a good source of lasting energy – and the desire for good from love of the Lord and love of the neighbor is a good source of lasting spiritual energy. Yet the carbohydrate-rich heart of each grain of wheat is covered by a hull rich with vitamins, protein and fiber, building blocks for the body – much as the desire for good is clothed in ideas of how to put good into action.

(Referências: Apocalypse Explained 374; Apocalypse Revealed 315; Arcana Coelestia 3941 [1-9], 7605, 9995)

493. There is no need to pause too long over the consideration that 'days' and 'years mean periods of time and states. Only this need be stated here, that in the world periods of time and measurements to which numbers may be applied are indispensable, for they belong within the ultimate realms of nature. But whenever such application occurs, the numbers of days and years, and also the numbers applied to measurements, mean something which is completely different from periods of time or from measurements, and which is determined by the meaning of the number used, as in the statements about there being six days for work, and the seventh being holy, which are dealt with above; in the statement about a jubilee having to be announced every forty-ninth year and celebrated in the fiftieth; about the tribes of Israel being twelve, the same number as the Lord's Apostles; and about there being seventy elders, the same number as the Lord's disciples. And there are many other examples where the numbers mean some special characteristic completely different from the persons or objects to which they apply. And when completely separated one from the other the states meant by the numbers are then left.