To “dwell” somewhere, then, is significant – it’s much more than just visiting – but is less permanent than living there. And indeed, to dwell somewhere in the Bible represents entering that spiritual state and engaging it, but not necessary permanently. A “dwelling,” meanwhile, represents the various loves that inspire the person who inhabits it, from the most evil – “those dwelling in the shadow of death” in Isaiah 9, for example – to the exalted state of the tabernacle itself, which was built as a dwelling-place for the Lord and represents heaven in all its details. Many people were nomadic in Biblical times, especially the times of the Old Testament, and lived in tents that could be struck, moved and raised quickly. Others, of course, lived in houses, generally made of stone and wood and quite permanent. In between the two were larger, more elaborate tent-style structures called tabernacles or dwellings; the tabernacle Moses built for the Ark of the Covenant is on this model.

Gilead, as in Genesis 31:21, 23, was a boundary of the land of Canaan. In the spiritual sense, it means "the good that comes first, which is that of the bodily senses, for it is the good or delight of the senses that a person who is being regenerated is introduced into first of all. This is the sense in which 'Gilead' is taken in the Prophets, as in Jeremiah 8:52; 22:6; 46:11; 50:19; Ezekiel 47:18; Obadiah 1:19; Micah 7:14; Zechariah 10:10; Psalm 60:7; and, in the opposite sense, in Hosea 6:8; 12:11.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4117)