not what people think … see how lost folks are ?
Make thee an ark of gopher woods, mansions shalt thou make the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
- By the “ark” is signified man
- by “gopher wood” his concupiscences;
- by the “mansions” are signified the two parts of the man, which are the will and the understanding;
- by “pitching it within and without” is signified his preservation from an inundation of cupidities [ = the flood of iniquity ].
showing us that the Bible is grossly misinterpreted …. people know not what symbolism represent: dealing with Noah and the ark
But as regards the signification itself of the words: that “gopher wood” signifies concupiscences, and the “mansions” the two parts of man, is evident from the Word. Gopher wood is a wood abounding in sulphur,* like the fir, and others of its kind. On account of its sulphur it is said that it signifies concupiscences, because it easily takes fire. The most ancient people compared things in man (and regarded them as having a likeness) to gold, silver, brass, iron, stone, and wood-his inmost celestial to gold, his lower celestial to brass, and what was lowest, or the corporeal therefrom, to wood. But his inmost spiritual they compared (and regarded as having a likeness) to silver, his lower spiritual to iron, and his lowest to stone. And such in the internal sense is the signification of these things when they are mentioned in the Word, as in Isaiah:
For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron; I will also make thine officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness (Isa. 60:17).
In Ezekiel:
They shall make a spoil of thy riches and make a prey of thy merchandise; thy stones, and thy wood (Ezek. 26:12).
It is very manifest that by “riches” and “merchandise” are not meant worldly riches and merchandise, but celestial and spiritual; and the same by the “stones” and “wood”-the “stones” being those things which are of the understanding, and the “wood” those which are of the will.
In Habakkuk:
The stone crieth out of the wall, and the beam out of the wood answereth (Hab. 2:11).
The “stone” denotes the lowest degree of the understanding; and the “wood” the lowest of the will, which “answers” when anything is drawn from sensuous knowledge [scientifico sensuali]. Again:
Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; and to the dumb stone, Arise, this shall teach. Behold it is fastened with gold and silver, and there is no breath in the midst of it. But Jehovah is in the temple of His holiness (Hab. 2:19-20).
Here also “wood” denotes cupidity; “stone” denotes the lowest of the understanding, and therefore to be “dumb” and to “teach” are predicated of it; “there is no breath in the midst of it” signifies that it represents nothing celestial and spiritual, just as a temple wherein are stone and wood, and these bound together with gold and silver, is to those who think nothing of what they represent.In Jeremiah:
We drink our waters for silver; our wood cometh for price (Lam. 5:4).
Here “waters” and “silver” signify the things of the understanding; and “wood” those of the will. Again:
Saying to wood, Thou art my father; and to the stone, Thou hast brought us forth (Jer. 2:27).
Here “wood” denotes cupidity, which is of the will, whence is the conception; and “stone” the sensuous knowledge [scientifico sensuali], from which is the “bringing forth.” Hence, in different places in the Prophets, “serving wood and stone” is put for worshiping graven images of wood and stone, by which is signified that they served cupidities and phantasies; and also “committing adultery with wood and stone” as in Jeremiah (3:9). In Hosea: My people inquire of their wood, and the staff thereof declareth unto them; because the spirit of whoredoms hath led them away (Hos. 4:12),
meaning that they make inquiry of graven images of wood, or of cupidities.That by the “mansions” are signified the two parts of man, which are the will and the understanding, is evident from what has been stated before: that these two parts, the will and the understanding, are most distinct from each other, and that for this reason, as before said, the human brain is divided into two parts, called hemispheres. To its left hemisphere pertain the intellectual faculties, and to the right those of the will. This is the most general distinction. Besides this, both the will and the understanding are distinguished into innumerable parts, for so many are the divisions of the intellectual things of man, and so many those of the will, that they can never be described or enumerated even as to the universal genera, still less as to their species. A man is a kind of least heaven, corresponding to the world of spirits and to heaven, wherein all the genera and all the species of the things of the understanding and of the will are distinguished by the Lord in the most perfect order, so that not even the least of them is undistinguished, concerning which, of the Lord’s Divine mercy hereafter. In heaven these divisions are called Societies, in the Word “habitations” and by the Lord “mansions” (John 14:2). Here also they are called “mansions” because they are predicated of the ark, which signifies the man of the church.
That the “window” which was to be “made perfect to a cubit from above” signifies the intellectual part, anyone may see from what has now been said; and also from the fact that when the construction of the ark is being treated of, and by the “ark” is signified the man of the church, the intellectual part cannot be otherwise compared than to a “window from above.” And so in other parts of the Word: the intellectual part of man, that is, his internal sight, whether it be reason, or mere reasoning, is called a “window.” Thus in Isaiah:
O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, I will make thy suns (windows) of rubies, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy border of pleasant stones (Isa. 54:11-12).~ E Swedenborg also http://smallcanonsearch.com/read.php?book=ac§ion=655