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.

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

3478. To some there was also represented the tabernacle with the ark, for to those who, when they lived in the world, have taken very great delight in the Word such things are presented to them visually. So on the occasion referred to they saw the tabernacle with all its furnishings; that is to say, they saw its courts, its curtains round about, its veils inside, the golden altar or altar of incense, the table where the loaves were placed, the lampstand, and the mercy-seat with the cherubim. At the same time these upright spirits were allowed to perceive what each particular thing meant. It was the three heavens that were represented by the tabernacle, and the Lord Himself by the testimony inside the ark, above which there was the mercy-seat. And to the extent their sight was opened they saw within those objects more heavenly and Divine things, of which they had had no knowledge at all during their lifetime. And what was amazing, every least thing there, even every hook or ring, was representative. Consider merely the bread placed on the table. Within this as within a representative and symbol they perceived the food on which angels live, and so perceived celestial and spiritual love together with all the bliss and happiness that the angels enjoy. And within that love, also that bliss and happiness, they perceived the Lord Himself as the bread or manna from heaven. They perceived more besides from the shape, position, and number of the loaves, and from the gold which was around them, and from the lampstand which lit up those things and displayed further representations of things that are indescribable. The same was so with everything else in the tabernacle. From all this one might also see that the religious observances or the representatives of the Jewish Church contained all the arcana of the Christian Church, and also that those to whom the representatives and meaningful signs of the Old Testament Word are disclosed are able, while living in the world, to know and perceive the arcana which belong to the Lord's Church on earth. And when they enter the next life they are able to know and perceive the arcana of arcana which belong to the Lord's kingdom in heaven.