199. Internal Meaning of Joel, Chapter 2

1-2 The Lord will come and will execute judgment (1, 15)

2 when falsity and evil from the sensual has destroyed the whole church. (3)

4-9 Falsity of evil will destroy all things of it by various insanities. (3)

10 All good and truth has been dispersed, together with the knowledges [cognitiones] of them. (3)

11 The Lord will fight with them. (7)

12-17 Exhortation to be converted to Him, to repent, and to be wise. (2)

18-19 The Lord will establish the church, to which He will give its goods and truths, (11)

20 and will remove falsities of evil, and thus hell. (11, 17)

21-25 They will have trust in the Lord, from which they will have goods and felicities, (11)

26-27 and acknowledgment from the heart. (11)

28-29 By His Divine the Lord will fill those who are of that church with all things and will vivify them. (11, 12)

30-31 Falsities of evil and evils of falsity will dissipate influx on the day of judgment, (3, 15)

32 but those who acknowledge and worship the Lord will be saved. (17)

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.

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