3312. 'Dwelling in tents' means worship arising out of this. This is clear from the meaning of 'tents' as the holiness of love and of the worship arising out of this, 414, 1102, 2145, 2152. The reason 'tents' means the holiness of the worship arising is that in most ancient times the member of the Church with whom love to the Lord and consequently holy worship existed dwelt in tents and held his holy worship there. And because the holiness of love and the resulting holiness of worship started to be represented at that period by means of tents, they were commanded to make a Tent according to the pattern shown to Moses on Mount Sinai and to establish their Divine worship there. This was also the origin of the Feast of Tabernacles when they had to dwell in tents, which they were required to do so as to represent the holy worship which existed with the member of the celestial Church. From this it is evident that 'dwelling in tents' means worship.

2153. 'And he bowed down towards the ground' means the expression of humility from the resulting joy. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowing down' as expressing humility. Insofar as all interior affections have corresponding gestures within external or bodily activity - gestures which are expressions of affections as their own efficient causes, the affection belonging to humility has the corresponding gesture of bowing down ¹ and also that of prostration. This gesture was clearly a product of joy, for as has been stated, He recognized the perception to be from the Divine. 'The Lord's state of humiliation when He was in the Human has been referred to in various places already, and in the Lord's Divine mercy is to be referred to further in the present chapter.

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