The heart means love. A good heart means love to the Lord and to the neighbor, while a hard or stony heart means the love of self or the world -- riches and things. When the psalmist asks the Lord to search his heart, he wants the Lord to see what it is that he loves. And we are what we love. What we eat may form our earthly body, but it's only temporary, what we love forms our spiritual body, beautiful or ugly as we have chosen. It's interesting to note that the first multi-cellular motion of our embryo is the pulsating that starts in a twist of blood vessel that is to become our heart, and the last motion of our natural body is our heartbeat. It is there for all of our natural life. And of course there is a beating heart in our spiritual bodies when we come to put them on.

All changes of place in the Bible represent changes in spiritual state. “Entering” – usually used as entering someone’s house or “going in unto” someone – particularly means adopting a spiritual state that is compatible with someone else in order to communicate with them or be conjoined with them. This is easily seen in the fact that a man “going in unto” a woman is sort of a Biblical euphemism for a physical relationship. In a broader sense, all the spiritual changes we go through in our lives involve “entering” and “leaving,” so when the Bible uses the phrasing “going in and coming out,” it symbolizes someone’s entire spiritual life.

To enter, as in Genesis 7:1, signifies to be prepared.