Swedenborg tells us that all places in the Bible correspond to spiritual states we experience during our growth toward (hopefully) heaven. That includes many states of spiritual struggle, or temptation, when we confront our own selfish longings and have the opportunity to push them aside. After states of temptation, however, the Lord offers us states of comfort, joy, and delight in the new ideas and insights that come as a result. That comforting state is, according to Swedenborg, the meaning of Elim when it is mentioned in the Bible.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8367
‘And they came to Elim’ means a state of enlightenment and affection, and so a state of comfort after temptation. This is clear from the meaning of ‘Elim’; as with all the other places to which the children of Israel came, it embodies and has as its meaning the state and essential nature of the reality to which it refers, see 2643, 3422, 4298, 4442. In this instance a state after temptation is meant, which is a state of enlightenment and affection, and so of comfort. Every spiritual temptation is followed by enlightenment and affection, and so by feelings of pleasure and delight, pleasure as a result of enlightenment through truth, delight as a result of affection for good.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8259
After that song the internal sense deals with the second temptation undergone by those belonging to the spiritual Church, described by the grumbling of the people at Marah, where the waters were bitter; and finally it refers to the comfort they received, meant by the encampment at Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees.
Apocalypse Explained (Tansley) n. 458 (9)
“They came to Elim, where were twelve fountains of waters, and three score and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters” (Exod. xv. 27; Num. xxxiii. 9).
These historical circumstances also contain a spiritual sense, for a spiritual sense is in all the historical parts of the Word. Their coming to Elim signifies a state of enlightenment and affection, and thus of consolation after temptations; twelve fountains of waters signify that they then had truths in perfect abundance; seventy palm trees signify that similarly they had the goods of truth; and their encamping by the waters signifies that truths are arranged by means of good after temptations. This passage may be seen further explained in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 8366-8370).