Doctrine of Holy Scripture - Swedenborg Foundation

DOCTRINE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 166valleys, and the fountains, rivers, and waters in them, and manylike things, one who knows nothing about the spiritual sense of theWord must believe that these things only are meant. For he is notaware that a garden, grove, and forest, mean wisdom, intelligence,and knowledge; that an olive, vine, cedar, poplar, and oak, meanthe celestial, spiritual, rational, natural, and sensuous good andtruth of the church; that a lamb, sheep, goat, calf, and ox meaninnocence, charity, and natural affection; that mountains, hills, andvalleys, mean higher, lower, and lowest things of the church; thatEgypt signifies memory-knowledge, Asshur reason, Edom thenatural, Moab the adulteration of good, the sons of Ammon theadulteration of truth, Tyre and Sidon the knowledges of truth andgood, and Gog external worship without internal. But when a manknows these things he is able to consider that the Word treats solelyof heavenly things, and that these earthly things are merely thesubjects [subjecta] in which the heavenly things are.[4] But let this also be illustrated by an example from the Word.We read in David:The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the God of glory maketh it tothunder; Jehovah is upon the great waters. The voice of Jehovah breaketh thecedars; yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makeththem also to skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a son of unicorns. Thevoice of Jehovah cutteth out as a flame of fire. The voice of Jehovah makeththe wilderness to tremble; it maketh the wilderness of Kadesh to tremble. Thevoice of Jehovah maketh the hinds to be in travail, and layeth bare the forests;but in his temple everyone saith, Glory (Ps. 29:3–9).He who is not aware that everything here, even as to every singleword, is divinely holy, may, if a merely natural man, say to himself,What is this—that Jehovah sitteth upon the waters, that by hisvoice he breaketh the cedars, maketh them skip like a calf, andLebanon like a son of unicorns, and maketh the hinds to be intravail, and so on? For he knows not that in the spiritual sense thepower of Divine truth, or of the Word, is described by these things.[5] In this sense, the “voice of Jehovah,” here called “thunder”means the Divine truth or Word in its power. The “great waters,”