In general, trees represent the deepest and most significant intellectual concepts: the ones that come to us most directly from the Lord. This varies depending on us and our states: the people of the Most Ancient Church, who were in a state of loving the Lord, understood truth automatically and internally through what the Writings call "perception"; people in lower states (including most of us) have to work a little harder to learn it from the Word and by willing to follow the Lord. In other parts of the Bible, especially in the prophets and New Testament parables, the meaning of "tree" is broader, meaning not just a person's intellectual concepts but the whole person.

'Trees,' as in Joel 1:10-12, signify knowledges.

380. "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. (7:15) And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them." This symbolically means that they are in the Lord's presence, and live constantly and faithfully in His church in accordance with the truths that they receive from Him, and that the Lord continually implants goodness in their truths.

Their being therefore before the throne of God means, symbolically, that they are in the Lord's presence; and their serving Him day and night means, symbolically, that they constantly and faithfully live in accordance with the truths they receive from Him, which is to say, His commandments. Serving the Lord has no other symbolic meaning. To be in His temple means, symbolically, to be in His church (no. 191). "He who sits on the throne will dwell among them" means, symbolically, that the Lord continually implants goodness in the truths that they receive from Him. Dwelling among them has this symbolic meaning because in the Word, dwelling is predicated of goodness, and serving of truth.

At this point I must now disclose the following secret, that the marriage of the Lord and the church consists in the Lord's flowing into angels and people with the goodness of love, and in the angels' and peoples' reception of Him, or of the goodness of His love, in truths. By this means a marriage of goodness and truth is formed, a marriage that is the essence of the church, and one that becomes heaven in the recipients.

Because such is the nature of the Lord's inflowing and people's reception of Him, therefore the Lord looks upon angels and people by looking at their foreheads, and people look back at the Lord through their eyes. For the forehead corresponds to the goodness of love, and the eyes correspond to truths springing from that goodness - truths which, as a result of that conjunction, thus become truths belonging to goodness.

The Lord's flowing into angels and people with truths, on the other hand, is not like the flowing in of goodness in them, for it is a mediated one emanating from goodness, as light does from fire, and they receive it intellectually, and in the will only in so far as they practice the truths.

This, then, is the marriage of love and wisdom, or of goodness and truth, from the Lord, among those who receive it in heaven and on earth.

I have disclosed this secret to make known how the statement is to be understood, that the Lord continually implants goodness in their truths.