Swedenborg says the number 42 in the Bible represents blasphemy, or the complete destruction of the truths of a church.
This can happen on a personal scale, or on a grand scale.
When bears emerged from the woods and mauled 42 boys for mocking Elisha (II Kings 2: 23-24), Swedenborg says it represents people who attack the Bible and try to prove that it has no meaning. That can be anyone at any time, and is a danger we all face if we close our minds to the Bible’s deeper meanings.
Forty-two is used on a grander scale when it appears twice in Revelation: first in Rev 11:2, when it is said that the Gentiles will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months; then in Rev. 13:5, when the beast from the sea is given power to speak blasphemies for 42 months. Swedenborg says this represents a state of the fallen Christian church of the 18th century, when heresies had destroyed the church’s true ideas about the Bible and the Lord.
Passages from Swedenborg
Apocalypse Revealed (Rogers) n. 489
489. “And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months.” This symbolically means that the church has dispelled every truth of the Word to the point that none remains.
The holy city means the Holy Jerusalem, and the Holy Jerusalem means the New Church which possesses doctrinal truths, as holiness is predicated of Divine truth (no. 173). A city, moreover, symbolizes doctrine (no. 194). Consequently to tread that city underfoot means, symbolically, to dispel its doctrinal truths. Forty-two months mean, symbolically, to the end when nothing remains.
Doctrinal truths mean truths from the Word, because that is the source of the church’s doctrine and every particular of it.
People concerned with the internal elements of the church today have thus dispelled the Word’s truths and the church’s doctrine from it. All of this is described in the present chapter by the beast ascending from the bottomless pit, which killed the two witnesses (verse 7); and it may also be seen from the accounts from the spiritual world appended to each chapter.
[2] Forty-two months mean, symbolically, to the end when nothing of the church’s truth and goodness remains, because the number forty-two has the same symbolic meaning as six weeks, inasmuch as forty-two is the product of six multiplied by seven, and six weeks symbolizes a period complete to the end. For that is the symbolic meaning of the number six, and a week symbolizes a state, and the seventh week a holy state, which is the new state of the church when the Lord begins His reign.
The number forty-two has the same symbolic meaning in the following verse:
(The beast rising up out of the sea) was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and it was given the power to do this for forty-two months. (Revelation 13:5, no. 583)
The number six symbolizes a period complete to the end because that is the symbolic meaning of the number three, six being that number doubled; and doubled or not, in the case of numbers the symbolism is the same.
Furthermore, this number has the same symbolic meaning as the number three and a half, because forty-two months is equivalent to three and a half years.
Apocalypse Explained (Whitehead) n. 633
633. Forty-two months, signifies even to the end of the old church and the beginning of the new. This is evident from the signification of “months,” as being states, here the states of the church; for “times,” whether hours or days or months or years or ages, signify states, and such states are designated by the numbers by which such times are determined, as here by the number “forty-two” (that this is so, see above, n. 571, 610). This is evident also from the signification of “forty-two” as being the end of the former church and the beginning of the new; this is the signification of that number, because it means six weeks, and “six weeks” has a similar signification as the “six days” of one week, namely, a state of combat and labor, and thus the end when the church is altogether vastated, or when evil is consummated; and “the seventh week” which then follows signifies the beginning of a New Church; for the number “forty-two” arises from the multiplication of six into seven, six times seven making forty-two, therefore “forty-two” has a similar signification as “six weeks,” and “six weeks” something similar to the “six days” of one week, namely, a state of combat and labor, as was said, and also a full state, here the full consummation of good and truth, that is, the full vastation of the church.
Apocalypse Revealed (Rogers) n. 583
583. And it was given authority to do so for forty-two months. This symbolizes the scope to teach and practice the evils and falsities accompanying that doctrine even to the end of that church, until the beginning of a new one.
Being given authority to do so symbolizes the ability to speak great and blasphemous things, namely, to teach and practice evils and falsities, as indicated just above in no. 582. Forty-two months mean, symbolically, to the end of the previous church, until the beginning of a new one, as said in no. 489 above, having the same symbolic meaning as three and a half days (no. 505), as time, times and half a time (no. 562), and as one thousand, two hundred and sixty days (no. 491). For forty-two months constitute three and a half years.
Apocalypse Revealed 573
A bear symbolizes people who read the Word but fail to understand it, so that they derive from it misconceptions.
In the second book of Kings we read that Elisha was mocked by some boys and called a baldhead, and that forty-two boys were therefore torn apart by two female bears from the woods (2 Kings 2:23, 24). This occurred because Elisha represented the Lord in respect to the Word (no. 298), because baldness symbolized the Word without its literal sense, thus having no reality (no. 47), because the number forty-two symbolized blasphemy (no. 583), and because female bears symbolized the literal sense of the Word read indeed, but not understood.
Apocalypse Explained 781
[11] That a “bear” signifies power from the natural sense of the Word, both with the well-disposed and with the evil, can be seen from the following passages. In the second book of Kings:
When Elisha went up to Bethel, as he was going up in the way there came forth boys out of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up thou baldhead, go up thou baldhead. And he looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the name of Jehovah; and there came forth two she-bears out of the forest, and tare in pieces forty-two boys (2:23, 24).
Why the boys were cursed by Elisha and in consequence were torn by two bears because they called him “baldhead,” cannot be known except by knowing what “Elisha” represented, and what a “baldhead” signifies, and what “bears” signify.
This evidently was not done by Elisha from unrestrained anger and without just cause, for he could not have been so cruel merely because the little boys said, “Go up thou baldhead.” This was indeed, an insult to the prophet, but not a sufficient reason for their being therefore torn to pieces by bears.
But this was done because Elisha represented the Lord in respect to the Word, thus the Word that is from the Lord. “Baldhead” signified the Word deprived of the natural sense, which is the sense of its letter; and “bears out of the forest” signified power from the natural sense or sense of the letter of the Word, as has been said above; and these “boys” signified such as blaspheme the Word because its natural sense is such as it is; and “forty-two” signifies blasphemy.