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.

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

6949. 'And it was made into a serpent' means the sensory and bodily level of a person's mind separated from the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'a serpent' as a person who engages in reasoning based on sensory evidence, dealt with in 195-197, 6398, 6399, thus the sensory level of a person's mind. And since 'a serpent' means the sensory level it means the bodily also, for the sensory level acquires its perceptions from the bodily senses. And since the sensory level regarded in itself is such as is described immediately above in 6948, 'a serpent', which is the sensory level, also means all evil in general, 251, 254, 257. The use of 'a serpent' here to mean the sensory and bodily level of a person's mind separated from the internal or rational level is evident from the fact that Moses fled from before it, meaning a feeling of horror caused by it, as well as from the fact that this sign describes the state of those who belonged to the spiritual Church if they were not in possession of faith; for in that case their internal would be closed and no more of the light of heaven would flow in than would be sufficient to enable them to think on that separated sensory level and therefore speak on that level. This level, separated [from the internal], is the one on which all people think who defend falsities in opposition to truths, and evils in opposition to forms of good, in short all who in life pursue what is evil and who are consequently devoid of any faith since those who lead an evil life have no belief at all. People like this have greater ability than others to engage in reasoning and to convince others, especially the simple, because when they speak they draw on the illusions of the senses and worldly appearances. They also know how to demolish truths or hide them from view by means of illusions, on account of which cunning and deceitfulness are also meant by 'serpents'. When however the sensory level has become joined to the internal or has been made properly subordinate to the rational, 'a serpent' means shrewdness and circumspection, 197, 4111, 6398.