466. Encompassed with a cloud; and a rainbow was over His head, signifies His Divine natural and Divine spiritual. By "the cloud" with which He was encompassed, is signified the Divine natural; wherefore the Word in its natural sense, which also is from Him, thus is His and Himself, is signified by "cloud" (n. 24). By "the rainbow" is signified the Divine spiritual, and as this is above the natural, therefore the rainbow appeared over the head. It is to be known, that the Lord is present with men in His Divine natural, but, with the angels of His spiritual kingdom, in His Divine spiritual, and with the angels of His celestial kingdom, in His Divine celestial; still He is not divided, but appears to everyone according to his quality. The Lord's Divine spiritual is also signified by the rainbow in Ezekiel:
And above the expanse of the cherubim was the likeness of a throne, and upon it the appearance of a man; and from the fire of His loins there was as it were the appearance of the rainbow which is in the cloud in the day of rain, this was the appearance of the glory of Jehovah (Ezek. 1:26-28). By "the throne" is signified heaven; by "the man upon it" the Lord; by "the fire of the loins," celestial love; and by "the rainbow," Divine truth spiritual, which also is of His Divine wisdom. It is written in Moses:
I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth, and when I shall see it in the cloud, I will remember the eternal covenant (Gen. 9:12-17). By "the rainbow" here nothing else is meant but the Divine truth spiritual in the natural with the man who is regenerated; for man, when he is regenerated, from natural becomes spiritual; and in as much as there is then a conjunction of the Lord with him, therefore it is said, that the bow in the cloud should be for "a sign of the covenant." "Covenant" signifies conjunction. That there is no conjunction of the Lord with man by rainbows in the world, is evident.
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