1. Dat het Woord van het Oude Testament verborgenheden van de hemel bevat, en dat zowel het geheel als elke bijzonderheid daarvan op de Heer betrekking heeft, op Zijn hemel, op de Kerk, op het geloof en de dingen van het geloof, kan geen sterveling uit de letter opmaken. Uit de letter of uit de letterlijke zin ziet niemand iets anders, dan dat het in het algemeen gaat over de uiterlijke dingen van de Joodse Kerk, terwijl er overal een innerlijke zin is, dat nergens in het uiterlijke aan het licht komt, behalve dan het zeer weinige dat de Heer onthuld heeft en aan de apostelen heeft ontvouwd; zo bijvoorbeeld, dat de offeranden de Heer betekenen, het land Kanaän en Jeruzalem en ook het Paradijs, de hemel betekenen, waarom dan ook van het hemelse Kanaän en Jeruzalem gesproken wordt.

10728. 'And said to them, These are the words which Jehovah has commanded, to do them' means instruction regarding the major truth of the Church to which all others look back. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' as instruction, dealt with in the places referred to in 10280; and from the meaning of 'the words which Jehovah has commanded, to do them' as the major truth that must be fully obeyed. The reason why this is meant is that those words refer to the sabbath, which was the chief of all representative signs, and so means the major truth to which all others look back; for the representative signs in the Church among the Israelite nation were forms of truth on the last and lowest level of order. The situation with representative signs is that the objects which appear in the natural world, in its three kingdoms, compose the last and lowest level of Divine order; for all the realities of heaven, which are called spiritual and celestial, terminate in them. In all this lies the reason why a representative Church was established and why such things were commanded as would represent heaven fully, with every kind of truth and good existing there, on last and lowest levels. And the things which carried the representation were formed out of such objects as exist in the natural world - the tabernacle surrounded with curtains, the table in it on which the loaves of the Presence were laid, the lampstand and its lamps, the altar on which incense was offered, Aaron's garments and the breastplate consisting of precious stones, and other objects in addition to these. What such things represented has been shown in what has gone before.