The Bible

 

Genesis 1:30

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30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1020

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1020. That these things are meant becomes clear from the fact that everything put together as history from Genesis 1 down to Eber in Chapter 11 means something different from what appears in the letter, and from the consideration that the historical narratives there are purely made-up history customary among the most ancient people. When attesting the truth of some matter they would say that 'Jehovah said it'. Here however 'God' is used because the subject is the spiritual Church. And they did the same when anything true was being, or had been, put into effect.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Commentary

 

Mountain

  

The Lord's love is the sun of heaven, and it is natural for us to look above ourselves to the sun of this world in thinking about the Lord. It follows, then, that to be closer to the Lord we would climb into the highest places -- and indeed, people have been worshiping on mountains for ages. In fact, even steeples on modern churches are symbolic mountains. It makes sense, then, that a mountain in the Bible represents love to the Lord, the highest, purest love we human beings can experience. Mountains can also represent the desire for good that comes from the love of the Lord. Hills, meanwhile, represent a love of other people and a caring for them, and when "mountains" is used in the plural it generally represents both loves.