46. The sense of the letter of the Word is signified by the curtains and veils of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle represented heaven and the church, and therefore the form of it was shown by Jehovah upon Mount Sinai. Consequently all things in the Tabernacle - the lampstand, the golden altar for incense, and the table whereon were the loaves of faces - represented and consequently signified holy things of heaven and the church. The Holy of holies wherein was the ark of the covenant represented and consequently signified what is inmost of heaven and the church; and the Law itself written on the two tables of stone and enclosed in the ark signified the Lord as to the Word. Now, as external things derive their essence from internal things, and both of these from the inmost, which in this case was the Law, it follows that holy things of the Word were represented and signified by all things of the Tabernacle. Therefore the ultimate things of the Tabernacle which were the curtains and veils (and thus its coverings and containers), signified the ultimate things of the Word, which are the truths and goods of the sense of the letter. And because these ultimates of the Word were signified,
All the curtains and veils were made of fine linen intertwined, of hyacinthine blue and bright-crimson, and of scarlet double dyed, with cherubim (Exod. 26:1, 31, 36).
What the Tabernacle and all things in it represented and signified generally and specifically, has been unfolded in Arcana Coelestia on this chapter of Exodus. It is there shown that the "curtains" and "veils" represented external things of heaven and the church, and therefore of the Word; and that "fine linen" signified truth from a spiritual origin; "hyacinthine blue," truth from a celestial origin; "bright crimson," celestial good; "scarlet double dyed," spiritual good; and "cherubim," guards of the interior things of the Word.