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.

721. 'Male and mate' ¹ means falsities joined to evils. This is clear from what has been stated just above, for 'male and mate' now has reference to unclean beasts whereas just above they had reference to clean. In that place therefore they meant truths joined to goods, whereas here they mean falsities joined to evils. For it is the subject that determines the nature of that which is attributed to it.

Сноски: