1606. Genesis 13:15. "Because all the land that you see — to you I will give it, and to your seed forever."

Because all the land that you see — to you I will give it symbolizes the kingdom of heaven and the fact that it would be the Lord's. And to your seed forever symbolizes the people who would believe in him.

115. The earliest people, when mentioning the names of various lands, had the symbolism of those places in mind. The same is true of people today who adopt the idea that the land of Canaan and Mount Zion symbolize heaven. When such people hear these names, they do not even think of the land or the mountain but only about the things they stand for. Likewise in the present verse in regard to the land of Havilah, which comes up again in Genesis 25:18; in that verse the subject is Ishmael's offspring, who "lived from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is before Egypt as you come into Assyria."

For people who look at things the way heaven does, what the words of this verse suggest is simply intelligence and what stems from intelligence. They take circling, for instance (as in "the river Pishon circles the whole land of Havilah"), to mean "flowing in." So the fact that gold settings circled the shoham stones on the shoulders of Aaron's ephod (Exodus 28:11) suggests to them that the good we love flows into the truth we believe. There are many other examples.