300. As regards the first arcanum, that 'Jehovah God' is used to mean the Lord and at the same time heaven, it should be recognized that in the Word, always for some hidden reason, the Lord is sometimes called simply Jehovah, sometimes Jehovah God, sometimes Jehovah and God interchangeably, sometimes the Lord Jehovah, sometimes the God of Israel, and sometimes simply God. In Genesis 1, for example, where again an utterance is made in the plural, 'Let Us make man in Our image', God is the only name used. Not until the next chapter, where the celestial man is the subject, is He called Jehovah God-Jehovah, because He alone has Being and is Living, and so from His essence; God, because of His ability to accomplish all things, and so from His power, as is clear in the Word where the two names are used separately, Isaiah 49:4-5; 55:7; Psalms 18:2, 28, 30-31; Psalms 38:15. Consequently any angel or spirit who spoke to a person, or who people thought had the ability to accomplish something, they called God, as is clear in David,

God stands in the assembly of God, in the midst of the Gods will He judge. Psalms 82:1.

And elsewhere in David,

Who in the sky will be compared to Jehovah? Who will be likened to Jehovah among the sons of gods? Psalms 89:6.

And elsewhere in the same,

Confess the God of Gods; confess the Lord of lords. Psalms 136:2-3

It is from power that even men are called 'gods', as in Psalms 82:6; John 10:34-35. And Moses is spoken of as 'a god to Pharaoh', Exodus 7:1. And this also is why [in Hebrew] the word for God, Elohim, is plural. But because angels have no power whatsoever from themselves, as they themselves also confess, but from the Lord only, and as there is but one God, Jehovah God is therefore used in the Word to mean the Lord alone. Yet when anything is accomplished through the ministry of angels He is spoken of in the plural, as in Genesis 1. In the present chapter too, since a celestial man, as man, did not bear comparison with the Lord, but with angels, it is therefore said that 'the man has become as one of Us in knowing good and evil', that is, become someone wise and having intelligence.

4117. 'And he set his face towards mount Gilead' means good within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'mount' as the celestial element of love, which is good, dealt with in 795, 1430, to which the good meant by 'Jacob' was joined - 'Gilead' meaning the essential nature of it. Since the river was the boundary and, as has been stated, meant the first phase of the joining together, 'mount Gilead', which lay in this part away from the Jordan, means the good involved in that first stage of the joining together.

[2] The land of Gilead where the mountain was situated lay within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. It was situated on this side of the Jordan, and was granted as an inheritance to the Reubenites and the Gadites, and in particular to the half-tribe of Manasseh. And since the inheritances stretched out that far, it is said that it was situated within the confines of the land of Canaan understood in a wide sense. The fact that this territory was granted as an inheritance to those tribes is clear in Moses, Numbers 32:1, 26-41; Deuteronomy 3:8, 10-16; Joshua 13:24-31. For this reason when the land of Canaan was envisaged in its entirety it was said to stretch from Gilead even to Dan, and in another sense from Beersheba even to Dan, for Dan also was a boundary, 1710, 3923. Regarding its stretching from Beersheba even to Dan, see 2858, 2859; and reference to its doing so from Gilead to Dan occurs in Moses,

Moses went up from the plains of Moab onto mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is in the direction of Jericho. There Jehovah showed him the whole land, Gilead even to Dan. Deuteronomy 34:1.

And in the Book of Judges,

Gilead dwelling at the crossing of the Jordan; and Dan, why will he fear ships? Judges 5:17.

[3] Because it was a boundary, 'Gilead' in the spiritual sense means the good that comes first, which is that of the bodily senses, for it is the good or delight of the senses that a person who is being regenerated is introduced into first of all. This is the sense in which 'Gilead' is taken in the Prophets, as in Jeremiah 8:22; 22:6; 46:11; 50:19; Ezekiel 47:18; Obad. verse 19; Micah 7:14; Zechariah 10:10; Psalms 60:7; and in the contrary sense, in Hosea 6:8; 12:11.