The spiritual meaning Swedenborg offers for “sink” is relatively easy to see: It means to descend into lower spiritual states, especially into states where false reasoning and the desire for evil predominate. This can represent a permanent state for those confirmed in evil living in hell, and it can also represent states of temptation we all go through repeatedly, when our our desires to be good and our true beliefs from the Lord come under attack from the desire for evil and false reasoning.
“Sinking,” of course, often has to do with water. Water usually represents natural truth, or true ideas about day-to-day life. But in the reverse sense it can also represent falsity, twisted logic that assaults our belief.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8279
- ‘They sank down into deep places like a stone’ means that they fell down to lower levels as if on account of heaviness. This is clear from the meaning of ‘going down’ – down to lower levels as if on account of heaviness – as falling down; from the meaning of ‘deep places’ as lower levels where the hells are located, dealt with below; and from the meaning of ‘like a stone’ as, as if on account of heaviness. The words ‘like a stone’ are used because ‘a stone’ in the genuine sense means truth, dealt with in 643, 1298, 3720, 3769, 3771, 3773, 3789, 3798, 6426, and therefore in the contrary sense means falsity. Furthermore falsity arising from evil is by nature such that it falls downwards to lower levels like a heavy object in the world, whereas truth springing from good is by nature such that it rises upwards to higher levels like a light object in the world. This explains why the evil who have not yet undergone vastation in respect of the truths they know are in the region above hell; but as soon as they have undergone such vastation, that is, have been deprived of truths, it is as though they have had their wings cut off and they fall downwards like weights. And the worse the falsities arising from evil are, the further down they go.
AC 9755
[15] In the contrary sense however ‘the sea’ means factual knowledge which has the world as the end in view; in this case its ‘waves’ are reasonings that are the product of worldly notions about Divine matters. Consequently ‘being immersed in the sea’ means being immersed so thoroughly in factual knowledge which is the product of worldly and earthly notions that there is no belief whatever in God’s truth, as in Matthew,
Whoever causes one of the little ones believing in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if an ass’s millstone***** were hung onto his neck and he were plunged into the depth of the sea. Matt. 18:6.
‘A millstone’ is truth which is of service to faith, 4335, 7780, ‘an ass’ is the natural because it is a servant, 2781, 5741, 5958, 6389, 8078, so that ‘an ass’s millstone’ is natural and worldly knowledge. ‘The neck’ means the joining of interior things to exterior ones, 3542; ‘being hung on it’ means a blocking and cutting off of good and truth, 3542, 3603; ‘being plunged into the depth of the sea’ means sinking into what is merely worldly and bodily, thus into hell. These words, like all others spoken by the Lord, are accordingly such as carry a spiritual meaning.
AE 537
[9] So in David:
“Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the well shut her mouth upon me” (Psalm lxix. 14, 15).
That well here signifies the hell where and whence falsities are, is clear, for it is said, “let not the well shut her mouth upon me,” that is, let not the hell whence falsities are, or the falsities from hell, wholly possess me, so as to prevent my escape. The mire, out of which it is said, “deliver me, and let me not sink,” denotes from the evil of falsity, lest I perish; let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters, signifies to be liberated from the evils and falsities that are from the hells, haters denoting evils thence, and deep waters denoting falsities therefrom; neither let the deep swallow me up, signifies let not the hell where the falsities of evil are, or the falsities of evil from hell.
AE 538
[12] Similar things are signified by the following passages in David:
“Abyss calleth unto abyss at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me” (Psalm xlii. 7).
So again:
“The waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in mire of the deep where there is no standing; I am come into the depths of waters, and the floods overflow me. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the depths of waters. Let not the water-floods overflow me, neither let the pit shut her mouth upon me” (Psalm lxix. 1, 2, 14, 15).
Again:
“Return, quicken me, return, and bring me up again from the abyss of the earth” (Psalm lxxi. 20).
And again:
“I am counted with them that go down into the pit; neglected among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the pit of the lower [parts] in dark places, in the deeps” (Psalm lxxxviii. 4, 5, 6).
In these passages in David also the temptations of the Lord, by which He subjugated the hells, and glorified His Human, while in the world, are described. Waves and billows, signify evils and falsities, and abysses and depths of the sea, and also the pit, signify the hells where and whence those evils and falsities are; for as we said above, temptations are as it were immersions into the hells, and obsessions by evils and falsities. These things are signified by lamentations in many places in David, and also in the prophets. For in the spiritual sense of the Word, the temptations of the Lord are much treated of by which He subjugated the hells, and reduced all things to order in the heavens and in the hells, and by which He glorified His Human; they are especially meant by the things predicted in the prophets and Psalms concerning the Lord, and fulfilled by Him, as stated in Luke (xxiv. 44).