5144. 'And behold, three baskets' means consecutive degrees forming the will. This is clear from the meaning of 'three' as complete and continuous even to the end, dealt with in 2788, 4495, 5114, 5122, thus things that are consecutive; and from the meaning of 'baskets' as degrees forming the will. The reason 'baskets' means degrees forming the will is that they are vessels which serve to contain food, and 'food' means celestial and spiritual kinds of good, which are contained in the will. For all good belongs to the will, and all truth to the understanding. As soon as anything goes forth from the will it is perceived as good. Up to this point the subject has been the sensory power subject to the understanding, which has been represented by 'the cupbearer'; but now the subject is the sensory power subject to the will, which is represented by 'the baker', see 5077, 5078, 5082.
[2] The consecutive or continuous degrees of the understanding were represented by the vine, its three shoots, blossom, clusters, and grapes; and then truth which belongs properly to the understanding was represented by 'the cup', 5120. But the consecutive degrees forming the will are represented by the three baskets on the baker's head, in the highest of which 'there was some of every kind of food for Pharaoh, the work of the baker'. By consecutive degrees of the will are meant degrees in consecutive order, beginning with the one inmostly present with a person and ending with the outermost degree where sensory awareness resides. Those degrees are like a flight of steps from the inmost parts to the outermost, 5114. Good from the Lord flows into the inmost degree, then through the rational degree into the interior natural, and from there into the exterior natural, or the sensory level. That good passes down a flight of steps so to speak, the nature of it being determined at each distinct and separate level by the way it is received. But more will be said later on about the nature of this influx and those consecutive degrees it passes through.
[3] Elsewhere in the Word 'baskets' again means degrees of the will, in that forms of good are contained in these, as in Jeremiah,
Jehovah showed me, when behold, there were two baskets of figs, set before the temple of Jehovah; in one basket extremely good figs, like first-ripe figs, but in the other basket extremely bad figs, which could not be eaten because of their badness. Jeremiah 24:1-3.
In this case a different word is used in the original language for 'a basket', 1 which is used to describe the natural degree of the will. The figs in the first basket are forms of good in the natural, but those in the second are forms of evil there.
[4] In Moses,
When you have come into the land which Jehovah your God will give you, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the land, which you shall bring from your land, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place which Jehovah has chosen. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and place it before the altar of Jehovah your God. Deuteronomy 26:1-4.
Here yet another word for 'a basket' is used', which means a new will within the understanding part of the mind. 'The first of the fruit of the land' are the forms of good produced from that new will.
[5] In the same author,
To consecrate Aaron and his sons, Moses was to take unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil; he was to make them of fine wheat flour. And he was to put them in one basket, and to bring them near in the basket. Aaron, then his sons, were to eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread in the basket, at the door of the tent of meeting. Exodus 29:2-3, 32.
In this case the same word is used for 'a basket' as here [in the baker's dream]. It means the will part of the mind, which has within it forms of good that are meant by bread, cakes, oil, wafers, flour, and wheat. The expression 'the will part of the mind' describes that which serves as a container; for good from the Lord flows into those interior forms within an, as the proper vessels to contain it. If those forms have been set to receive it they are 'baskets' containing such good.
[6] In the same author, when a Nazirite was being inaugurated,
He shall take a basket of unleavened [loaves] of fine flour, cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, together with their minchah and their drink-offerings. He shall also offer a ram as a sacrifice of peace-offerings to Jehovah, in addition to the basket of unleavened things. And the priest shall take the cooked shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake from the basket, and one wafer from the unleavened, and he shall place them on the hand of the Nazirite, and [the priest] shall wave them as a wave-offering before Jehovah. Numbers 6:15, 17, 19-20.
Here also 'a basket' stands for the will part of the mind serving as a container. Cakes, wafers, oil, minchah, cooked shoulder of the ram serve to represent forms of celestial good; for a Nazirite represented the celestial man, 3301.
[7] In those times things like these which were used in worship were carried in baskets; even the kid which Gideon brought to the angel under the oak tree was carried in one, Judges 6:19. The reason for this was that 'baskets' represented things serving as containers, while the things in those baskets represented the actual contents.
Fotnoter:
1. Swedenborg reflects these differences by the use of three different Latin words for basket.
