906. Its length is as great as its breadth. This symbolically means that goodness and truth in the New Church are united, like essence and form.

The length of the city Jerusalem symbolizes the church's goodness, and its breadth symbolizes the church's truth. That the breadth of a thing symbolizes truth is something we showed from the Word in no. 861 above.

The length of a thing symbolizes goodness, here the goodness of the church, for the same reason that breadth symbolizes truth. The reason is that the sweep of heaven from east to west is meant by length, and the sweep of heaven from south to north by breadth, and angels who dwell in the eastern and western zones in heaven are impelled by the goodness of love, while angels who dwell in the southern and northern zones in heaven are impelled by truths of wisdom, as may be seen in no. 901 above.

[2] It is the same with the church on earth, for everyone impelled by the church's goods and truths from the Word is associated with angels in heaven, and he dwells with them in the interiors of his mind - those impelled by the goodness of love in the eastern and western zones of heaven, and those impelled by truths of wisdom in the southern and northern zones of heaven. No one is aware of this, indeed, but everyone nevertheless goes to his place after death.

This, then, is the reason that length, when describing the church, symbolizes its goodness, and breadth its truth. Obviously length and breadth cannot be used to describe the church, but they can be to describe a city which symbolizes the church.

The symbolic meaning is that goodness and truth in the New Church are united, like essence and form, because we are told that its length is as great as its breadth, and, as we said, its length symbolizes the church's goodness, and its breadth its truth.

They are united like essence and form, because truth gives formal expression to goodness, and goodness is the essence of truth, and the essence and the form are united.

861. 20:9 And they went up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. This symbolically means that, being roused up by followers of the dragon, these people scorned every truth in the church and attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

To go up over the breadth of the earth means, symbolically, to scorn every truth in the church, because going up over symbolically means to transcend and bypass, thus to scorn. And the breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in the church, as will be seen below. To surround the camp of the saints means, symbolically, to besiege and try to destroy everything connected with the New Church, as will be seen in the number following next. And the beloved city symbolizes the doctrine of the New Church. That a city symbolizes a church's doctrine may be seen in nos. 194, 501, 502, 712 above. The city is called beloved because its doctrine teaches about the Lord and how to live, as it is the doctrine of the New Jerusalem that is meant here.

That this is the symbolic meaning of these words, no one can see except as a consequence of the Word's spiritual sense. For it cannot possibly enter a person's thought that the breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in a church, that the camp of the saints symbolizes everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and its goods, and that the city symbolizes its doctrine. Lest the mind remain in a state of doubt, therefore, we must demonstrate what breadth and the camp of the saints symbolize in the spiritual sense, which will make it possible for one to see afterward that the meaning of these words is as we have said.

[2] The breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in a church because the spiritual world has in it four zones - eastern, western, southern and northern - and the eastern and western zones form its longitude or length, while the southern and northern zones form its latitude or breadth. Moreover, because the inhabitants in the eastern and western zones are ones impelled by the goodness of love, and therefore the east and west symbolize goodness, so likewise does longitude or length. And because the inhabitants in the southern and northern zones are ones impelled by truths of wisdom, and therefore the south and north symbolize truth, so likewise does latitude or breadth. But for more on this subject, see the book Heaven and Hell (London, 1758), nos. 141-153.

That breadth symbolizes truth can be seen from the following passages in the Word:

You (Jehovah) have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in the broad place. (Psalms 31:8)

Out of distress I called on Yah; He answered me in the broad place. (Psalms 118:5)

(Jehovah) led me out into the broad place; He delivered me... (Psalms 18:19)

...I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and impetuous nation which marches into the breadths of the earth... (Habakkuk 1:6)

(The Assyrian) will pass through Judah, He will overflow and pass over..., and the spreading of his wings will fill the breadth... (Isaiah 8:8)

...Jehovah will pasture them like a lamb in broad pasture. (Hosea 4:16)

And so on elsewhere, as in Psalms 4:1; 66:12, Deuteronomy 33:20.

[3] Nothing else is meant by the breadth of the city New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:16). For since the New Jerusalem means the New Church, its breadth and length cannot symbolically mean its breadth and length, but its truth and goodness. These, indeed, are the measures of a church.

So also in Zechariah:

I said (to the angel), "Where are you going?" He said..., "To measure Jerusalem, to see how great its width is and how great its length." (Zechariah 2:2)

So likewise the breadth and length of the new temple and new earth in Ezekiel, chapters 40-47.

So, too, the length and breadth of the altar of burnt offering, of the Tabernacle, of the table of showbread, of the altar of incense, and of the ark within. So also the length and breadth of the temple in Jerusalem, and of many other things whose dimensions are given.