As with many common verbs, the meaning of “to say” in the Bible is highly dependent on context. Who is speaking? Who is hearing? What is it about? Is it a command, a message, an apology, instruction? All these things enter into the meaning of “say.” In general, though, “saying” has to do with sharing truth at various levels -- from the most exalted power people can have to perceive the Lord's desires directly to the most basic of orders issued to people at their lowest.

120. 3. The offspring from the Lord as Husband and Father and from the church as wife and mother are all spiritual offspring, and this is what is meant in the spiritual sense of the Word by sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and by other terms which have to do with descending generations. We have no need to show that spiritual offspring are the only kind of offspring born from the Lord through the church, because reason sees it is so without demonstration. For the Lord is the source from which all good and truth flow, and it is the church which receives this good and truth and puts them into effect. Moreover, the spiritual virtues of heaven and the church all have to do with good and truth.

It is because of this that sons and daughters in the Word in its spiritual sense mean truths and goods - sons meaning truths conceived in a person's spiritual self and born in the natural self, and daughters meaning qualities of goodness similarly conceived and born. In the Word, therefore, people who have been regenerated by the Lord are called sons of God, sons of the kingdom, and ones born of Him; and the Lord called the disciples sons.

The male child whom the woman bore and who was caught up to God in the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation (Revelation 12:5) has the same symbolism (see The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 543).

Since daughters symbolize a church's qualities of goodness, therefore reference is so often made in the Word to the daughter of Zion, daughter of Jerusalem, daughter of Israel, and daughter of Judah. By daughter in these places is not meant an actual daughter, but an affection for good which is connected with the church (see The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 612).

The Lord also calls those people brothers and sisters who belong to His church (Matthew 12:49, 25:40, 28:10, Mark 3:35, Luke 8:21).