8931. 'You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven' means all things in the Word coming through influx from God by way of heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'speaking from heaven', when done by Jehovah addressing members of the Church, who are represented by 'the children of Israel', 8930, as God's truth, or the Word coming from God by way of heaven. For what is spoken by Jehovah is God's truth, thus the Word existing within the Church; and what He speaks comes by way of heaven.

[2] It should be recognized that heaven does not exist in some fixed and exact location; that is, it is not up on high, as it is commonly thought to be. Rather heaven exists wherever the Divine is present. This being so, it exists with and within everyone possessing charity and faith, since charity and faith are what constitute heaven, because they are what come from the Divine. There also angels live. The truth that heaven is where the Divine, that is, the Lord, is present is evident from the fact that Mount Sinai, from which the Lord spoke, is called 'heaven' here. This also is the reason why 'Mount Sinai' means heaven, from which Divine Truth flows, 8805.

[3] The reason why all things in the Word are meant is that Jehovah or the Lord now begins to reveal the Word that is to serve the human race in what they teach and the way they live, first through Moses and later on through the Prophets. In order therefore that people might know that the Word came from the Divine by way of heaven, the Lord Himself was willing to come down and declare the Ten Commandments vocally, and in doing this to show that everything else which comes after them in the law, that is, in the Word, came in the same way through influx from the Divine by way of heaven.

4865. 'And supposed that she was a prostitute' means that it supposed them to be nothing else than something false. This is clear from the meaning of 'a prostitute' as that which is false, dealt with in 2466, 2729, 3399, and so as the fact that with its semblance of religion the Jewish nation looked on the internal aspect of the Church as nothing else than something false. The reason 'a prostitute' means that which is false is that a marriage represents the heavenly marriage, which is that of good and truth. The husband represents good and the wife truth, and therefore sons represent truths and daughters forms of good, while a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law, a father-in-law and a mother-in-law, and many others as determined by their degrees of affinity, represent aspects of the heavenly marriage. Therefore, being opposites of these, acts of adultery and prostitution mean evil and falsity, and are in all reality the opposite of them, for people who spend their lives committing adultery or behaving as prostitutes have no concern at all for what is good and true. The reason for this is that genuine conjugial love comes down from the heavenly marriage, that is, from the marriage of good and truth, whereas adultery and prostitution spring from evil and falsity joined together - from hell; see 2727-2759.

[2] The fact that the Jewish nation looked, as also at the present day it looks, on the internal features of the Church as nothing else than falsities is meant by Judah's supposition that Tamar his daughter-in-law was no one else than a prostitute and by his connection with her as with a prostitute. This origin of that nation represents the origin and also the essential nature of their semblance of religion. It is plain to see that this nation looks on the internal aspect of the Church as a harlot, that is, as something false. For example, if anyone tells them it is an internal truth of the Church that the Messiah, who is foretold in the prophetical parts of the Word and whom they await, is the Lord, they completely reject this as something false. If anyone tells them it is an internal truth of the Church that the Messiah's kingdom is not a worldly and temporal but a heavenly and eternal one, they declare this too to be something false. If anyone tells them that the ritual observances of their Church represented the Messiah and His heavenly kingdom they have no idea what this is.

[3] If anyone tells them that the internal aspect of the Church is the good of charity and the truth of faith, both in doctrine and at the same time in life, they regard this as nothing else than a falsity. And so it is with every other truth told them. Indeed at the mere suggestion of an internal aspect of the Church they laugh nonsensically. The reason for this is that they are immersed solely in things of an external nature, and indeed in the lowest of these, which consist in the love of earthly things; for more than all others they are steeped in avarice, which is utterly worldly. Such people cannot possibly look on the interior features of the Church in any other way, since they are further removed than all others from the light of heaven, and so more than all others dwell in thickest darkness.