8572. Verses 4-6 And Moses cried out to Jehovah, saying, What shall I do for this people? Yet a little and they stone me. ¹ And Jehovah said to Moses, Pass on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and your rod with which you struck the river, take in your hand, and go. Behold, I [will be] standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you are to strike the rock, and water will come out of it; and let the people drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.

'And Moses cried out to Jehovah, saying' means deep grief, and intercession 'What shall I do for this people?' means what should be done for those who make such bitter complaint because they are not in receipt of truth? 'Yet a little and they stone me' means that they are not far from doing violence to the truth from God. 'And Jehovah said to Moses' means aid. 'Pass on before the people' means that he is to lead and teach them. 'And take with you some of the elders of Israel' means with the help of leading truths. 'And your rod with which you struck the river' means the Divine power by means of which falsities were dispelled. 'Take in your hand, and go' means that furnished with that power, he is to carry out what has been commanded. 'Behold, I [will be] standing before you there on the rock in Horeb' means the Lord in respect of the truths of faith. 'And you are to strike the rock' means that they are to ask Him insistently. 'And water will come out of it' means that truths of faith will flow from Him. 'And let the people drink' means that those truths will refresh them and impart spiritual life. 'And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel' means the accomplishment by means of leading truths

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367. Clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands. This symbolizes a communication and conjunction with the higher heavens, and a confession springing from Divine truths.

To be clothed with white robes means, symbolically, to have a communication and conjunction with the heavens (see no. 328 above). Holding palm branches in the hands symbolizes confessions springing from Divine truths because palm branches symbolize Divine truths. For every tree symbolizes some element of the church, and palm branches symbolize Divine truth in outmost expressions, which is the Divine truth in the literal sense of the Word.

Engraved, therefore, on all the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem, inside and out, and also on its doors, were cherubim and palm trees (1 Kings 6:29, 32). Likewise in the New Temple described in Ezekiel 41:18-20. Cherubim symbolize the Word (no. 239), and palm trees the Divine truths in it.

That palm trees symbolize Divine truths in the Word, and palm branches in the hands confessions springing from them, can be seen from the fact that the Israelites were commanded to take, at the feast of Tabernacles, "the fruits of honorable trees and branches of palms, and rejoice before Jehovah." (Leviticus 23:39-40)

It can be seen also from the fact that when Jesus came to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, the people "took palm branches and went to meet Him, crying, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'" (John 12:12-13)

These symbolize a confession of the Lord springing from Divine truths.

A palm tree symbolizes Divine truth also in the book of Psalms:

The righteous man shall flourish like a palm tree; he shall grow... planted in the house of Jehovah; he shall sprout in the courts of our God. (Psalms 92:12-13)

So, too, elsewhere.

Because Jericho was a city near the Jordan, and the Jordan river symbolized that which is first in the church, namely Divine truth such as it is in the literal sense of the Word, therefore the city was called the city of palms (Deuteronomy 34:3, Judges 1:16; 3:13). For the Jordan was the first boundary of or point of entrance into the land of Canaan, and the land of Canaan symbolizes the church.