Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 4045denotes an abundance of celestial spiritual things; and “with honey”an abundance of derivative happiness and delights.[10] In David:The judgments of Jehovah are truth, righteous are they together;more to be desired are they than gold and much fine gold, sweeter alsothan honey and the dropping of the honeycombs (Ps. 19:9–10);the “judgments of Jehovah” denote truth Divine; “sweeter thanhoney and the dropping of the honeycombs” denotes delights fromgood and pleasantnesses from truth. Again:Sweet are thy words to my palate, sweeter than honey to mymouth (Ps. 119:103);where the meaning is similar.[11] The manna that Jacob’s posterity had for bread in thewilderness is thus described in Moses:The manna was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it waslike a cake kneaded with honey (Exod. 16:31);as the manna signified the truth Divine that descends throughheaven from the Lord, it consequently signified the Lord himself asto the Divine human, as he himself teaches in John 6:51, 58; for itis the Lord’s Divine human from which all truth Divine comes,yea, of which all truth Divine treats; and this being so, the manna isdescribed in respect to delight and pleasantness by the taste, that itwas “like a cake kneaded with honey.” (That the taste denotes thedelight of good and the pleasantness of truth may be seen above, n.3502.)[12] As John the Baptist represented the Lord as to the Word,which is the Divine truth on earth, in like manner as Elijah (n.2762, 5247), he was therefore the “Elijah who was to come” beforethe Lord (Mal. 4:5; Matt. 17:10–12; Mark 9:11–13; Luke 1:17);