47. (5) BY THE EXTERNALS OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM WERE REPRESENTED THE EXTERNALS OF THE WORD, WHICH BELONG TO ITS SENSE OF THE LETTER. This is because the same was represented by the temple as by the tabernacle, namely, heaven and the Church, and thence also the Word. That the temple at Jerusalem signified the Divine Human of the Lord, He Himself teaches in John:
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up ... But He spake of the temple of His body. John ii 19, 21;
and where the Lord is meant, the Word also is meant, because He is the Word. Now, since the interior things of the temple represented the interior things of heaven and the Church, thus also of the Word, therefore its exterior things represented and signified the exterior things of heaven and the Church, thus also the exterior things of the Word, which belong to the sense of the Letter. Concerning the exterior things of the temple it is written:
That they were built of stone, whole and unhewn, and of cedar within; and that all its walls within were carved with cherubim, palm trees and open flowers; and that the floor was overlaid with gold. 1 Kings vi 7, 29, 30.
By all these things are also signified the externals of the Word, which are the holy things of the sense of its Letter.
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