The Word is a Medium

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

THE INTERNAL SENSE OF THE WORD

I am aware that few can believe that there is such a sense in everything of the Word, not only in the prophetical, but also in the historical parts. That there is such a sense in the prophetical parts can more easily be believed, because in them there is not so connected a series of things, and there are also strange expressions in them, from which everyone may conjecture that they contain within them some secret meaning. But that there is also such a sense in the historical parts, does not so easily appear, both because this has hitherto come into no one's mind, and because the historical parts are such as to keep the attention fixed on themselves, and thereby to draw away the mind from thinking that anything of a deeper nature is there stored up; and also because the historicals are truly such as related.

Nevertheless no one can fail to infer that within these parts of the Word also there is what is heavenly and Divine, and which does not shine forth:

First, from the fact that the Word was sent down by the Lord through heaven to man, and therefore differs in its origin (and what the nature of this origin is, and that it is so different and distant from the literal sense as not even to be seen, and consequently not acknowledged, by those who are merely worldly, will be shown by many things in what follows);

Secondly, from the fact that the Word, being Divine, has not been written for man only, but also for the angels with man, in order that it might serve not only for use to the human race, but also for use to heaven; and that in this way the Word is a medium uniting heaven and earth. This union takes place by means of the church, and in fact by means of the Word in the church, which is for this reason such as it is, and is distinguished from all other writing.

As regards the historical parts specifically, unless they in like manner contained Divine and heavenly things in a sense abstracted from the letter, they could never be acknowledged by anyone who thinks more deeply to be the inspired Word, even as to every jot. Would anyone say that the abominable affair of Lot's daughters, treated of at the end of this chapter, would be related in a Divine Word? or Jacob's peeling rods and making the white appear, and placing them in the watering-troughs, that the flock might bear partly-colored, speckled, and spotted young? Besides many other things in the rest of the books of Moses, of Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, and the Kings, which would be of no importance, and in regard to which it would be a matter of indifference whether they were known or not known, unless they enfolded deeply within them a secret Divine meaning. If it were not for this, they would differ in no respect from other historical narratives, which have sometimes been so written that they seem more effective.

As the learned world is unacquainted with the fact that Divine and heavenly things lie hidden even within the historical parts of the Word, were it not for the holy veneration for the books of the Word which has been impressed upon them from childhood, they would be quite ready to say in their hearts that the Word is not holy except solely from that fact; when yet it is not from that, but because there is within it an internal sense which is heavenly and Divine, and which causes it to unite heaven with earth, that is, angelic minds with human minds, and thereby these latter with the Lord.

That the Word is of such a nature, and that it is in this way distinct from all other writing, may be seen also from the fact that not only do all the names signify actual things (as shown above, n. 1224, 1264, 1876, 1888), but all the words also have a spiritual sense; and they thus signify another thing in heaven from what they do on earth, and this most constantly, in both the prophetical and the historical parts. When these names and words are set forth in their heavenly sense in accordance with their constant signification in the whole Word, there comes forth an internal sense which is the angelic Word. This twofold sense of the Word is circumstanced as are the body and the soul; the literal sense is like the body, and the internal sense is like the soul; and as the body lives by means of the soul, so does the literal sense by means of the internal sense. Through the internal sense the Lord's life inflows into the literal sense, in accordance with the affection of him who is reading it. Hence it is evident how holy is the Word, although it does not appear so to worldly minds.

(from Arcana Coelestia 2310 - 2311)