56. Verse 29 And God said, Behold, I give you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face ¹ of the whole earth, and every tree in which there is fruit, the tree producing seed will be for you for food. A celestial man takes delight in none but celestial things, and because these suit his life they are called celestial food. A spiritual man takes delight in spiritual things, and because they suit his life they are called spiritual food. The same applies to a natural man and natural things, and because they suit his life they too are called food, and are chiefly facts. Here, since the subject is the spiritual man, his spiritual food is described by representatives, that is to say, spiritual food is represented by 'the plant yielding seed' and by 'the tree in which there is fruit', which in general are called 'the tree producing seed'. His natural food is described in the next verse.

Footnotes:

7072. After this I represented to them birds of the air, large and small, such as exist on our planet; for these kinds of things can be represented in the next life in a lifelike manner, the actual speech of spirits and angels being full of representations. When they saw the birds that were represented, they wished initially to turn them into something different; but they grew pleased with them and ceased wishing to do so. The reason for this was that birds of the air mean the knowledge of things, and at this time a perception of that fact was flowing into them. Therefore they refrained from turning them into something different and so from turning away the ideas in their memory. After that I was allowed to represent before them a very lovely garden full of lamp-posts and lights. This time they did nothing and held back, for the reason that lamp-posts with lights mean truths which shine from good. From this it was evident that they could go on looking at material things provided that at the same time the meaning which those things have in the spiritual sense was introduced. For the ideas that belong to the spiritual sense are devoid of material associations.