244. 'And the fourth animal was like a flying eagle' signifies the Divine Truth of the Word as to cognitions and the resulting understanding. By 'eagles' various things are signified, and by 'flying eagles' are signified the cognitions out of whirls understanding [is derived], because when they are flying they are recognising and seeing. They have sharp eyes also for penetrating vision (ut perspiciant), and by 'eyes' understanding is signified (n. 48, 214). By 'flying' is signified comprehending and instructing, and in the highest sense, in which the Lord is treated of, looking forward and providing. That 'eagles' in the Word signify such things is plain from these places:-
Those awaiting Jehovah are renewed in strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles Isa. xl 31.
'To mount up with wings as eagles' is to be elevated into cognitions of truth and good, and thereby into intelligence.
Is it by thine intelligence and according to thy mouth that the eagle lifts itself and searches out food; its eyes look out into the distance Job xxxix 26 [, 27, 29].
The faculty of recognising, understanding, and looking out is here described by the 'eagle', and that this is not done out of one's own intelligence.
Jehovah Who fills thy mouth with good, so that thou mayest be renewed in thy youth like the eagle Ps. ciii 5.
'To fill the mouth with good' is to give understanding by means of cognitions. From this a comparison is made with the eagle.
A great eagle, with great wings, long-feathered, came upon Lebanon, and took to itself a twig of a cedar, and planted it in a field of growing crops, and it sprouted. And there was another great eagle, to which a vine applied its roots Ezek. xvii 1-8.
By the two 'eagles' is there described the Jewish and the Israelitish Churches, both of them in respect of cognitions of truths and intelligence therefrom. But 'eagles' in the opposite sense signify cognitions of what is untrue, in consequence of which the understanding is perverted (as Matt. xxiv 28; Jer. iv 53; Hab. i 8, 9; and elsewhere).
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