I was once sent a little piece of paper from heaven with Hebrew letters on it, but letters written as they were among the most ancients. Today the letters are to some extent formed with straight lines, but among the most ancients they were then rounded and had little hornlike strokes projecting upward. An angel who was with me said he knew whole meanings from the letters alone, and that every letter had its own meaning. He also said that in heaven they knew the meaning from the curves of the lines in each letter, in addition to the idea they had from the individual letter itself He then explained to me the meaning of yodh ( ), aleph ( ), and he ( ), both what these letters signified separately, and what in combination. And he said that he ( ), which occurs in Yehowah ( ), and which was added to the names of Abraham and Sarah,* symbolized infinity and eternity.

He also said that the Word has been so written in many places that when a Jew or Christian reads it in the Hebrew text, it is known in the third heaven what the individual letters in these places signify. For angels of the third heaven have the Word written in letters like this, and they read it according to the letters. (They have said that in the meaning drawn from the letters, the Word has to do with the Lord alone.) The reason is that the curves in the letters take their origin from the flow of heaven, and the angels of the third heaven are in this flow more than the rest. Consequently those angels are skilled in that kind of writing instinctively, because they are in the order of heaven and live entirely according to it.

[2] Angels of the third heaven explained for me, moreover, the meaning of the Word in Psalm 32:2 from just the letters or syllables alone, and they said the gist of their meaning was that the Lord is merciful also to those who do evil. They added that the vowel points there serve to indicate the part of the pronunciation which corresponds to affection, and they said they cannot pronounce the vowels i and e, but instead of i say y or eu, and instead of e say eu. They said they do use the vowels a, o, and u, because these vowels have a full sound, whereas i and e are narrower. They also said they do not pronounce any of the consonants as hard, but softly, and that the hard consonants-such as daleth ( ) and qoph ( ) and the rest do not signify anything with them unless they are pronounced with a soft sound. This, they said, is the reason a number of the hard consonants when written also have a dot placed within them, to indicate [that they are pronounced as hard, but without a dot]** that they are pronounced with a soft sound. They added that hardness in consonants is employed in the spiritual heaven, because there they are concerned with truths and through truths are in a state of understanding, while in the celestial heaven all are concerned with the goodness of love and from this are in a state of wisdom. Truth allows hardness, whereas good does not.

It can be seen from this what is meant by the Lord's saying that not a yodh (jot) or tip of a stroke or hornlike projection (tittle) will pass from the Law (Matthew 5:18, Luke 16:17). And it is apparent as well from this that it came about by the Lord's Divine providence that all the letters of the Word in the Hebrew text were counted by the Masoretes. * See Genesis 17:5, 15. ** The bracketed words are taken from Spiritual Experiences (formerly Spiritual Diary), no. 5620. Otherwise this statement seems to be in error, a statement nevertheless repeated in The Sacred Scripture, no. 90, and in True Christian Religion, no. 278.