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Jerusalem

  

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])

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Arcana Coelestia #3761

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3761. 'Jacob lifted up his feet' means a raising up of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'lifting up' as a raising up, and from the meaning of 'the feet' as the natural, dealt with below. The raising up meant here is the subject of the chapter itself, namely a raising up from external truth towards internal good. In the highest sense the subject is how the Lord according to order raised His Natural even up to the Divine, rising up step by step from external truth towards internal good. In the representative sense it is how the Lord according to a similar order makes man's natural new when regenerating him. The fact that a person who is being regenerated in adult life progresses according to the order described in the internal sense of this chapter and of those that follow is known to few. This fact is known to few because few stop to reflect on the matter and also because few at the present day are able to be regenerated; for the last days of the Church have arrived when no charity exists any longer, nor consequently any faith. This being so, people do not even know what faith is, even though the assertion 'men is saved by faith' is on everyone's lips; and not knowing this they therefore have even less knowledge of what charity is. And since they know no more than the terms faith and charity and have no knowledge of what these are essentially, it has therefore been stated that few are able to reflect on the order in accordance with which a person is made new or regenerated, and also that few are able to be regenerated.

[2] Because the subject here is the natural, and the latter is represented by 'Jacob', it is not said that he rose up and went to the land of the sons of the east but that 'he lifted up his feet'. Both these expressions mean a raising up. As regards 'rising up' having this meaning, see 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171; and as regards the expression 'lifting up the feet' which occurs here, this is used in reference to the natural - 'the feet' meaning the natural, see 2162, 3147. 'The feet' means the natural or natural things because of their correspondence with the Grand Man - currently the subject at the ends of chapters. In the Grand Man those belonging to the province of the feet are those who dwell in natural light and little spiritual light. This also is why the parts beneath the foot - the sole and the heel - mean the lowest natural things, see 259, and why 'a shoe', which is also mentioned several times in the Word, means the bodily-natural, which is the lowest part of all, 1748.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.