Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in 2 Samuel 5, when King David takes the city from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. In the next chapter he brings the Ark of the Covenant there, and later it is where Solomon builds the temple, and his own palace. From then on Jerusalem is the center of worship of the Israelitish church. It is the place where the Lord was presented in the temple as a baby, where He tarried to talk to the priests at age twelve, where He cleansed the temple, had the last supper, was crucified and then rose. It is a central place in both the old and new Testaments. The city was built on Mount Zion, the highest point of the mountains of Judea. A city, in the Word, represents doctrine, the organized knowledge of the truths of the church. Mountains represent love of the Lord and the consequent worship. If you put those things together, Jerusalem on Mount Zion signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. This is why David was led to make Jerusalem the most important city of the land, and why all worship was conducted there. And this is also why Jeroboam was condemned for introducing idol worship in Samaria. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of the city New Jerusalem descending from God is a prophecy of a new dispensation of doctrine coming from the Lord.

(Препратки: Arcana Coelestia 4539, 8938; The Apocalypse Explained 365 [35-38])

4842. 'Judah said' means in general the descendants of Jacob, specifically those descended through Judah. This is clear from the meaning of 'Judah' in the proximate sense as the nation descended from Jacob, and specifically those descended from Jacob through Judah, as also stated above in 4815. In the Word a distinction is indeed drawn between Judah and Israel, 'Judah' being used in the historical sense to mean the tribe of Judah, and 'Israel' to mean the ten tribes that had been separated from that tribe. But in the internal or spiritual sense 'Judah' represents the celestial element of the Church, which is good, and 'Israel' the spiritual element, which is truth. In the contrary sense however 'Judah' represents the evil of the Church and 'Israel' the falsity of the Church, wherever such evil or falsity existed, whether among Jews or among Israelites. For the internal or spiritual sense of the Word is universal and does not draw the same distinctions between the tribes as are drawn in the external or historical sense. This is the reason why in the proximate sense 'Judah' means the whole nation descended from Jacob, but specifically those descended from Jacob through Judah.