47. The external things of the Temple at Jerusalem represented external things of the Word, which belong to the sense of its letter. This is because the Temple represented the same as did the Tabernacle, namely, heaven and the church, and consequently the Word. That the Temple at Jerusalem represented the Lord's Divine Human, He Himself teaches in John:
Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up; He spake of the Temple of His Body (John 2:19, 21). Where the Lord is meant, there also is meant the Word, for the Lord is the Word. Now as the interior things of the Temple represented interior things of heaven and the church (and therefore of the Word), its exterior things represented and signified exterior things of heaven and the church, and therefore exterior things of the Word, which belong to the sense of its letter. Concerning the exterior things of the Temple we read:
That they were built of whole stone, not hewn, and within of cedar; and that all its walls within were carved with cherubim, palm trees, and openings of flowers; and that the floor was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:7, 29-30);
all of which things also signify external things of the Word, which are holy things of the sense of the letter.
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