In general, trees represent the deepest and most significant intellectual concepts: the ones that come to us most directly from the Lord. This varies depending on us and our states: the people of the Most Ancient Church, who were in a state of loving the Lord, understood truth automatically and internally through what the Writings call "perception"; people in lower states (including most of us) have to work a little harder to learn it from the Word and by willing to follow the Lord. In other parts of the Bible, especially in the prophets and New Testament parables, the meaning of "tree" is broader, meaning not just a person's intellectual concepts but the whole person.

'Trees,' as in Joel 1:10-12, signify knowledges.

8315. 'The powerful ones of Moab' means those leading a life of falsity resulting from that love. This is clear from the meaning of 'the powerful ones' as ruling and predominant elements; and from the representation of 'Moab' as people who are governed by natural good yet easily allow themselves to be led into error, dealt with in 2468, thus who lead a life of falsity as a result. For people governed by natural good and not by good that springs from the truth of faith, thus who are not governed by spiritual good, allow themselves to be carried away into believing any falsities whatever, and so into living in accordance with them. They are carried away from truths to falsities, in particular by ones that accord with the kinds of love they have. These are the people that 'Moab' serves to mean. Those governed by natural and not by spiritual good cannot at all be led by any influx from heaven, see 3470, 3471, 3518, 4988, 4992, 5032, 6208, 7197, 8002. The word used in the original language to express 'powerful ones' refers to those strong in truth that is grounded in good, and in the contrary sense to those strong in falsity that is rooted in evil. The word is used in the latter sense in Ezekiel 31:11; 2 Kings 24:15.