46. (4) THE SENSE OF THE LETTER OF THE WORD IS SIGNIFIED BY THE CURTAINS AND VEILS OF THE TABERNACLE. Heaven and the Church were represented by the tabernacle; therefore, the pattern of it was shown by Jehovah on Mount Sinai. Consequently, everything that was in the tabernacle, as the lampstand, the golden altar for incense, and the table on which was the shewbread, represented and therefore signified the holy things of heaven and the Church. The Holy of Holies, where was the Ark of the Covenant, represented and therefore signified the inmost of heaven and the Church. The Law itself, written on two tables of stone and enclosed in the Ark, signified the Lord as to the Word.
Now, because external things derive their essence from internal things, and both of these derive theirs from what is inmost, which in the tabernacle was the Law, therefore, the holy things of the Word were represented and signified by all things belonging to the tabernacle. It follows, therefore, that the ultimates of the tabernacle, namely, its curtains and its veils, thus its coverings and its containants, signified the ultimates of the Word, which are the truths and goods of the sense of the Letter. Because such things were signified, therefore,
All the curtains and veils were made of fine twined linen of blue and purple, and scarlet double-dyed with cherubim. Exod. xxvi 1, 31, 36.
What was represented and signified, in general and in particular, by the tabernacle and everything in it, is explained in the ARCANA CAELESTIA on this chapter of Exodus. It is there shown that the curtains and veils represented the external things of heaven and the Church, thus also the external things of the Word. Further, that fine linen signified truth from a spiritual origin; blue, truth from a celestial origin; purple, celestial good; scarlet double-dyed, spiritual good; and cherubim, the guards of the interiors of the Word.
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