46. The Word’s literal sense is symbolized by the curtains and veils of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle represented heaven and the church. Its form was therefore shown by Jehovah on Mount Sinai. Consequently everything in the Tabernacle — the lampstand, the golden altar for incense, and the table with showbread on it — represented and so symbolized the sanctities of heaven and the church. Moreover, the most holy place, where the Ark of the Covenant was, represented and so symbolized the inmost constituent of heaven and the church; and the Law itself, written on two tables of stone and contained in the ark, symbolized the Lord in relation to the Word.

Now because outward manifestations take their essence from inner components, and both of these from the inmost one, which in this case was the Law, therefore the holy qualities of the Word were also represented and symbolized by all the constituents of the Tabernacle.

It follows from this that the outmost constituents of the Tabernacle, which were its curtains and veils, thus its coverings and enclosures, symbolized the outmost constituents of the Word, which are the truths and goods of its literal sense.

[2] Because they symbolized these outmost constituents, therefore the curtains and veils were made “of fine woven linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet double-dyed, with...cherubim” (Exodus 26:1, 31, 36).

What the Tabernacle and everything found in it represented and symbolized, in general and in particular, is something we explained in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), in our treatment of this chapter in Exodus. And we showed there that the curtains and veils represented the outer constituents of heaven and the church, thus also the outer constituents of the Word. We showed, too, that the linen, or fine linen, symbolized truth from a spiritual origin; the blue, truth from a celestial origin; the purple, celestial goodness; the scarlet double-dyed, spiritual goodness; and the cherubim, protections for the Word’s inner constituents.

10. The twenty-first chapter in the book of Revelation describes the holy Jerusalem in this way, that it had in it a light “like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal;” that it had “a great and high wall, and twelve gates, and over the gates twelve angels, with names written on them...of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel;” that it had a wall of “a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel;” that the construction of its wall was of jasper, and its foundations of all kinds of precious stones — jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst; that “the twelve gates were twelve pearls;” that the city was “pure gold, like transparent glass;” and that it was square, “its length, breadth, and height...equal, ” measuring “twelve thousand furlongs.” And so on.

All of these particulars must be understood spiritually, as can be seen from the fact that the holy Jerusalem symbolizes a new church to be established by the Lord, as we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 62-65. And because Jerusalem in this description symbolizes a church, it follows that everything said about it as a city — about its gates, its wall, the foundations of the wall, and about their measurements — contains a spiritual meaning. For matters having to do with the church are spiritual.

[2] We have explained the symbolic meanings of each of these particulars in The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), no. 1. We therefore forgo any further explanation of them here. It is enough for it to be known from that book that there is a spiritual meaning present in each particular of the city’s description, like a soul in its body. Also, that apart from that meaning, nothing relating to the church would be understood in the depictions there, as that the city was of pure gold, with its gates of pearls, its wall of jasper, and the foundations of its wall of precious stones; that the wall was of a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; that the city itself was twelve thousand furlongs long, wide, and high; and so on.

Someone who has a knowledge of correspondences and knows from it the spiritual sense, understands the meanings of these things — as that the wall and its foundations symbolize doctrine drawn from the Word’s literal sense, and that the numbers 12,144, and 12,000 have similar symbolic meanings, namely all the truths and goods of the church in their entirety.