The meaning Swedenborg ascribes to “apart” in the Bible is pretty straightforward; it means there is a separation in spiritual states. What those states are and how the separation comes to be is a matter of context.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4025
- ‘And he put his own droves apart’ means the separation of goods and truths by His own power. This is clear from the meaning of ‘droves’, or flock, as goods and truths; and from the meaning of ‘putting his own apart’ as separating the things which had been acquired by His own power. The highest sense here deals with how the Lord Himself made His Natural Divine, doing so by His own power, yet employing such means as order required. The goods and truths which He made Divine within Himself are meant here by the droves which, being His own, He put apart from others.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 7443
- ‘And I will set apart on that day the land of Goshen, on which My people stand, so that the noxious flying insects are not there’ means that they will not be able to use malevolent falsities to molest those who belong to the spiritual Church even though they are near them. This is clear from the meaning of ‘settingapart’ as separating to prevent communication; from the meaning of ‘day’ as state, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850, so that ‘setting apart on that day’ is separating during that state; from the meaning of ‘the land of Goshen’ as the middle or inmost part in the natural, dealt with in 5910, 6028, 6031, 6068, and also, since the children of Israel were in the land of Goshen, as the Church, 6649; from the representation of the children of Israel, to whom ‘Jehovah’s people’ refers here, as those who belong to the spiritual Church, dealt with above in 7439; and from the meaning of ‘noxious flying insects’ as malevolent falsity, dealt with above in 7441, so that ‘the noxious flying insects are not there’ means that they will not be able to flow in, and therefore not be able to use those falsities for molesting others.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 9409
- ‘And on the children of Israel who had been set apart’ means those restricted to the outward sense, separated from the inward. This is clear from the representation of ‘the children of Israel who had been set apart’ – that is, those who had been separated from Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders, and about whom verse 2 above says ‘they shall not come up’ – as those restricted to the outward sense of the Word, separated from the inward, dealt with above in 9380.