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.

5041. 'And Jehovah was with Joseph' means that the Divine was inwardly present, that is, present within the Lord, who is represented in the highest sense by 'Joseph'. At this point the Divine presence in temptations is meant, temptations being the subject here. For the Divine itself is Jehovah, whose existence or presence within the Lord is meant by 'Jehovah was with Joseph'. Because the sense of the letter is dealing with Joseph the expression 'with Joseph' is used, but in the internal sense, where the Lord is the subject, 'within the Lord' is meant. Anybody within the Church can recognize this from the consideration that the Lord was conceived from Jehovah and for that reason calls Him His Father on so many occasions. A person's essential being (esse) and consequently the inmost centre of life in him is received from his father, its coverings or outward clothing from his mother. Therefore the Lord's Essential Being (Esse) and consequently the inmost centre of life in Him was the Divine because it was Jehovah Himself, while its coverings or outward clothing constituted the human which He took upon Himself from His mother by being born from her. The nature of this human was such that it could undergo temptation, for it was defiled by hereditary evil received from His mother. But because the inmost centre of Him was the Divine, He was able by means of the power that was His own to cast out that hereditary evil received from His mother. This casting out took place in succeeding stages by means of temptations, until He underwent the final temptation, that on the Cross, at which point He fully glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine. From this one may see what is meant when it is said that the Divine was inwardly present.