According to Swedenborg, plants in general represent knowledge, ideas and concepts – things of the mind, things we think. Plant the best and most beautiful of those in one place, give them plenty of water (truth from the Lord about day-to-day things), plenty of sunlight (the Lord’s wisdom) and warmth (the Lord’s love), tend them to keep the weeds (false ideas) out, and you get a garden. So it makes sense that a garden in the Bible represents our intellect, or what is commonly referred to in Swedenborg as our understanding, where with proper care we can nurture the best and most useful ideas and ways of thinking.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 98
- Verse 8 And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, from the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
‘Garden’ means intelligence, ‘Eden’ love, ‘the east’ the Lord. ‘Agarden in Eden, from the east’ therefore means celestial man’s intelligence which flows in by way of love, from the Lord.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1588
- ‘Like the garden of Jehovah’ means the rational concepts in the external man. This is clear from the meaning of ‘the garden of Jehovah’ as intelligence, dealt with in 100, consequently the rational which comes in between the internal man and the external man. The rational is intelligence as it exists in the external man. It is called ‘the garden of Jehovah’ when the rational is celestial, that is, when it has a celestial origin, as was the case with the Most Ancient Church. This is described in Isaiah as follows,
Jehovah will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like thegarden of ]Jehovah. Joy and gladness will be found in her, confession and the voice of song. Isa. 51:3.
When however the rational is spiritual, that is, when it has a spiritual origin, as was the case with the Ancient Church, the expression ‘the garden of God’ is used, as in Ezekiel,
Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, you were in Eden, thegarden of God. Ezek. 28:12, 13.
A person’s rational is compared to a garden because this is how it is represented in heaven. It is man’s rational that manifests itself in just this way when that which is celestial-spiritual flows into it from the Lord. Indeed it is this which presents to view the paradise gardens whose magnificence and beauty surpass everything the human mind can imagine. This is the effect which the influx of celestial-spiritual light from the Lord produces, as dealt with already in 1042, 1043. It is not the loveliness and beauty of these gardens that stir the emotions but the celestial-spiritual elements that live within them.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 100
- That ‘a garden’ means intelligence and ‘Eden’ love, is also evident in Isaiah,
Jehovah will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like theGarden of Jehovah. Joy and gladness will be found in her, confession and the voice of song. Isa. 51:3.
Here ‘wilderness’, ‘joy’, and ‘confession’ are terms used by the prophet to express the celestial things of faith, that is, things that belong to love. But ‘desert’, ‘gladness’, and ‘the voice of song’ express the spiritual things of faith, which in turn are matters of the understanding. The former relate to ‘Eden’, the latter to ‘a garden’. For throughout this prophet dual expressions for the same thing are constantly occurring, with one expression meaning celestial things, the other spiritual. For more about what the garden in Eden means, see at verse to below.
Heaven and Hell (Dole) n. 111
- There is a similar correspondence with things in the vegetable kingdom. A garden, in general terms, corresponds to heaven in respect to intelligence and wisdom, which is why heaven is called the garden of God and a paradise,(d) and why we call it a heavenly paradise.
That the Paradise of God is the truth of wisdom and faith is apparent from the symbolic meaning of a garden in the Word. Agarden there symbolizes wisdom and intelligence, because trees symbolize the people of the church, and their fruits goods of life. That is what the Garden of Eden symbolizes, for it describes the wisdom of Adam.
[2] The garden of God in Ezekiel has the same meaning:
With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself…. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering…. (Ezekiel 28:4, 13)
The subject is Tyre, which symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth and good, thus in respect to its intelligence. Accordingly it is said, “With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself.” The precious stones which served as its covering symbolize truths of intelligence.
[3] In the same book:
Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon…. The cedars in the garden of God did not hide it…. No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty…. All the trees of Eden envied it…in the garden of God. (Ezekiel 31:3, 8, 9)
This is said of Egypt and Assyria, because Egypt symbolizes knowledge, and Assyria rationality, which leads to intelligence. A cedar has a similar symbolism.
But because Egypt’s rationality led also to a conceit in its own intelligence, therefore it is said of it,
To which of the trees in Eden were you then likened in glory and greatness, when you were brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth below, and you lay in the midst of the uncircumcised…? (Ezekiel 31:18)
The uncircumcised are people who lack the goodness of charity.
[4] In Isaiah:
…Jehovah will comfort Zion…, and make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah. (Isaiah 51:3)
Zion there is the church. The wilderness and desert are a deficiency of truth and ignorance of it. Eden and the garden of God are wisdom and intelligence.
Wisdom and intelligence are also symbolically meant by a gardenin Isaiah 58:11, 61:11, Jeremiah 31:12, Amos 9:14, and Numbers 24:6.
[5] A person of the church is also like a garden in respect to his intelligence when he possesses goodness of love from the Lord, because the spiritual warmth that enlivens him is love, and spiritual light is the resulting intelligence.
People know that these two, warmth and light, cause gardens in the world to bloom. It is the same in heaven. Paradisal gardens are seen in heaven, with trees bearing fruit in accordance with the inhabitants’ wisdom that springs from their goodness of love from the Lord. But around people who possess intelligence without the goodness of love, no gardens are seen, but grass, while around those whose faith is divorced from charity, not even grass is seen, but sand.