1756. This is the message of the inner meaning, in its general outlines; but when every last word is explained according to its symbolism, the actual train of thought and its beauty cannot be seen as well as it would be if the whole were captured in a single mental image. When all of it is grasped in a single idea, then scattered particulars are seen to cohere and connect in a beautiful way.
The situation resembles that in which we hear someone talking and focus on the words. We do not pick up on the idea of the speaker as well as we would if we ignored the words and their definitions. Scripture's inner meaning (compared to its outer letter) is almost the same as speech whose words we only barely hear, much less pay attention to, when our mind is entirely absorbed by the ideas embodied in the speaker's words.
[2] The ancient method of writing used words and human figures to represent ideas in an entirely allegorical way. Secular writers of the day composed their histories in this way, and also [their works on] issues of public and private life. As a matter of fact, not a single written word was what it literally seemed to be; each represented another meaning. Ancient authors even presented the full range of passions as gods and goddesses, whom pagan peoples later began to worship as divine. Any literate person can see that this is so, since ancient books of the kind are still in existence.
This method of writing they inherited from the very earliest people, who lived before the Flood. The earliest people were in the habit of representing heavenly concepts and divine ones to themselves in the form of things visible in nature and in their culture. Because of this, it filled their minds and souls with pleasure and delight to observe the objects of the universe, especially those that displayed beauty of form or design. So all the books in the church of that time were written this way. Job is one such book. Solomon's Song of Songs is one that imitated them. The two books Moses mentioned in Numbers 21:14, 27 were of the same kind. 1 And there were many more that did not survive.
[3] This writing mode was later admired for its antiquity by both Jacob's descendants and the surrounding nations — so much so that they revered nothing as divine that was not written in that mode. People inspired by the prophetic spirit spoke in a similar way: Jacob (Genesis 49:3-27); Moses (Exodus 15:1-21; Deuteronomy 33:2-29); Balaam, a "child of the east" from Syria, where the ancient church remained in existence (Numbers 23:7-10, 19-24; 24:5-9, 17-24); Deborah and Barak (Judges 5:2-end); Hannah (1 Samuel 2:2-10); and many others. They spoke this way for many hidden reasons. People did not understand their words, and only a very small number realized that the words symbolized the heavenly affairs of the Lord's kingdom and church. Even so, touched and filled with wondering awe, they sensed that something divinely sacred was present in those words.
[4] The histories of the Word are like this as well; in them too the individual names and the individual words represent and symbolize the heavenly and spiritual qualities of the Lord's kingdom. This has not yet been recognized by the scholarly world, though, which knows only that the Word was inspired down to its smallest jot and that as a whole and in every word it contains secrets of heaven. 2
Footnotes:
1. The names of the books mentioned in Numbers 21:14, 27 are 1. the Book of the Wars of Yahweh (that is, Jehovah), already referred to in §§1659:3 and 1664:11-12 under the title Jehovah's Wars; and 2. what Swedenborg elsewhere calls The Utterances (Enuntiata in Latin; see §§2686:1, 2897-2898; True Christianity 265). Both books are now lost. [Editors]
2. "Jot" refers to the smallest letter, which in the Hebrew alphabet is yod (י). The term comes from the name of the Greek letter iota, which in turn comes from the same source as yod. An allusion to Matthew 5:18 is probably intended: "Till the heavens and the earth pass away, not a jot or a tittle will by any means pass away from the law." ("A tittle" here refers to a little upstroke that appears on many Hebrew letters.) [LHC]
