The Bible generally uses two different terms for large groups: “people” and “nations.” When it uses “nation,” it is talking about a group with the desire for good as its ultimate underlying motivation; when it uses the term “people” it is talking about a group whose deep motivation is to seek true ideas and concepts. As with all symbolism in the Bible, this can be also used in a negative sense, to describe groups with the lust for evil or those driven by false concepts. It can also be used in the abstract, with “nation” representing desires for good themselves and “people” representing true ideas themselves. In a way, these meanings make sense if we look at the two words themselves. “People” brings to mind a collection of individuals, and that is somewhat how it is with ideas -- you can have many of them that inter-relate, but also stand somewhat on their own, individually. “Nation” is a more unified term, reflecting the way that a desire for good tends to unify other feelings.

324. There is ample support for the truth of this in Secrets of Heaven and also in the book on Heaven and Hell, as well as throughout the preceding pages where I have dealt with correspondence [52, 83, 87]. I explained there that there is nothing in the created universe that does not answer to something in us, not only to our feelings and consequent thoughts, but also to our physical organs and viscera--not in respect to their substances, but in respect to their functions.

This is why when the Word talks about the church and its people, there is such frequent mention of trees like the olive and the vine and the cedar, of gardens and groves and woods, and of the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea. They are mentioned because they correspond and are united by corresponding, as noted. So too, when we are reading things like this in the Word, angels are not conscious of them but of the church in their stead, or of the church's people in regard to their state.