9335. 'And the wild animal of the field multiplies against you' means an inrush of falsities arising from the delights of self-love and love of the world. This is clear from the meaning of 'multiplying', when it has reference to a hurried removal of evils and falsities, as an inrush; and from the meaning of 'the wild animal of the field' as falsities arising from the delights of self-love and love of the world. For affections, good and bad, are meant in the Word by different kinds of beasts, 9280, and therefore affections for falsity that arise from the delights of self-love and love of the world are meant by 'wild animals'. These affections are also represented in the next life by wild animals, such as panthers, tigers, boars, wolves, or bears. Such affections furthermore resemble wild animals, for people ruled by those loves are steeped in evils of every kind and in the falsities arising from them. They are like wild animals in the way they see and treat companions. The fact that those loves are the source of all evils and falsities, see 2041, 2045, 2057, 2363, 2364, 2444, 4750, 4776, 6667, 7178, 7255, 7364, 7366-7377, 7488, 7490-7494, 7643, 8318, 8487, 8678.

[2] The reason why a hurried removal of evils and falsities leads to an inrush of falsities arising from those loves is that forms of good and truths, implanted in successive stages, must remove them; for falsities are not removed except by truths, nor evils except by forms of good. If this removal is not done in successive stages and in keeping with proper order, falsities that lend support to those selfish loves enter in, since those loves reign with every person before he has been regenerated; and when the falsities enter in truths cease to be acknowledged any longer. Also a person who is being regenerated is maintained in an affection for truth; and when maintained in this he searches for truths in all directions among factual knowledge in the natural. But at this time illusions of the outward senses, which exist in great abundance in the natural, present themselves there. From those illusions, when the delights of self-love and love of the world hold sway, the person deduces nothing except falsities, which come in and fill his mind if falsities arising from evil are removed suddenly. These are the considerations that are meant in the internal sense by I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest perhaps the land becomes desolate and the wild animal of the field multiplies against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land.

[3] The fact that 'wild animal' means falsity and evil arising from self-love and love of the world is evident from places in the Word which mention it, as in Isaiah,

There will be a path there and a way, which will be called the way of holiness. The unclean will not pass through it; the savage of the wild animals will not go up it. Isaiah 35:8-9.

In Ezekiel,

I will send famine and evil wild animals upon you, that they may make you bereft. Ezekiel 5:17.

In the same prophet,

When I cause evil wild animals to pass through the land and they leave it bereft so that ¹ it becomes a desolation, with the result that no one passes through on account of the wild animals ... Ezekiel 14:15.

In the same prophet,

You will fall on the open field; ² to the wild animals of the earth, and to the birds of the air I will give you for food. Ezekiel 29:5.

In the same prophet,

At that time I will make with them a covenant of peace, and I will banish ³ the evil wild animal from the land, in order that they may dwell securely in the wilderness. They will no longer be a prey for the nations, and the wild animals of the field will no longer devour them. Ezekiel 34:25, 28.

[4] In Hosea,

I will lay waste her vine and her fig tree; and I will make them into a forest, and the wild animals of the field will eat them. Hosea 2:12.

In the same prophet,

The land will mourn and every inhabitant will waste away because of the wild animals of the field and the birds of the air. Hosea 4:3.

In David,

The boar of the forest tramples on it, and the wild animal of the fields feeds on it. Return, O God Zebaoth, and visit Your vine. Psalms 80:13-14.

In the same author,

You dispose the darkness to become night, in which every wild animal of the forest comes forth. Psalms 104:20.

In Moses,

If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, I will banish ³ the evil wild animals from the land. But if you despise My statutes, I will send into you the wild animals of the field, which will lay you waste. Leviticus 26:3, 6, 15, 22.

In the same author,

Jehovah your God will cast out the nations before you little by little, lest perhaps the wild animals of the field multiply against you. Deuteronomy 7:22.

In these places 'the wild animals of the field', 'the wild animals of the earth', and 'the wild animals of the forest' stand for the falsities and evils that belong to self-love and love of the world.

[5] Since 'wild animal' means falsity, and falsity can spring from two different origins, that is to say, it may stem from evil or it may stem from good, 9258, 'wild animal' in the Word also means upright nations or gentiles who, though they are subject to falsity, nevertheless lead upright lives. The term 'wild animal' is used in this sense in David,

Every wild animal of the forest is Mine, and beasts on mountains of thousands; I know every bird of the mountains, and the wild animal of My fields is with Me. Psalms 50:10-11.

In the same author,

Praise Jehovah, wild animals and all beasts! Psalms 148:7, 10.

In Isaiah,

All wild animals of My fields - come to eat, all wild animals in the forest. Isaiah 56:9.

In Ezekiel,

In the branches of the cedar, which was Asshur, all the birds of the air made their nests, and under its branches every wild animal of the field brought forth, and in its shadow dwelt all great nations. Ezekiel 31:6.

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5398. THE INTERNAL SENSE

This chapter and the ones that follow it concerning Jacob's sons and Joseph deal in the internal sense with the regeneration of the natural so far as the truths and goods of the Church are concerned - such regeneration being effected not by means of factual knowledge but by an influx from the Divine. Those who belong to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration as to know virtually nothing at all about it. They do not even know that regeneration is a process that takes place throughout the whole course of the life of someone who is being regenerated and continues in the next life. Nor do they know that the arcana of regeneration are so countless that hardly the smallest fraction can be known even by angels, or that those which angels do know are what constitute the intelligence and wisdom they possess. Those belonging to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration because they talk so much about the forgiveness of sins and justification, believing that sins can be forgiven instantaneously. Some believe that sins are washed away like dirt from the body by the use of water, and that a person is justified or made righteous by means of faith alone, that is, by means of trust of only a moment's duration. The reason people within the Church believe the way they do is that they do not know what sin or evil is. If they did possess such knowledge they would know that no one's sins can by any means at all be washed away, but that these are separated or cast away to the sides to prevent them from rising up, when the Lord maintains the presence of good within that person. They would also know that this cannot be accomplished unless evil is being cast out all the time, which is done by means that are numerically without limit and for the most part beyond description.

[2] In the next life people who have brought with them the notion that a person is made righteous by faith in an instant and completely cleansed from sins are dumbfounded when they learn that regeneration is effected by means that are numerically without limit and beyond description. They laugh at their own ignorance, which they also call madness, that is, at the ideas they held to in the world regarding instantaneous forgiveness of sins and justification. Sometimes they are told that the Lord forgives the sins of everyone who in his heart desires forgiveness; but this does not mean that they are separated from the devil's crew, to whom they are bound through the evils which go along with the life which they bring with them in its entirety. After this they learn from experience that being separated from the hells is being separated from one's sins, and that this cannot possibly be accomplished except by thousands of ways known to the Lord alone, a process which, if you can believe it, continues for ever one stage after another. For the human being is so full of evil that he cannot ever be released from even one sin. But solely by the Lord's mercy, if he will accept that mercy, he is withheld from sin and maintained in good.

[3] The way therefore in which a person receives new life and is regenerated is contained in the sanctuary of the Word, that is, in its internal sense. The primary reason why the internal sense contains that information is that when the Word is being read by man, it causes the angels to be aware of the bliss that wisdom brings them and at the same time to take delight in serving as means. The subject in the highest sense of this chapter and those that follow it, where the narrative concerns Joseph's brothers, is the glorification of the Lord's natural, and in the representative sense the regeneration by the Lord of man's natural, in this chapter so far as the truths of the Church are concerned.