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Numbers 13

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1 And the Lord said to Moses,

2 Send men to get knowledge about the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from every tribe of their fathers you are to Send a man, every one a chief among them.

3 And Moses sent them from the waste land of Paran as the Lord gave orders, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.

4 And these were their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua, the son of Zaccur.

5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat, the son of Hori.

6 Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

7 Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal, the son of Joseph.

8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea, the son of Nun.

9 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti, the son of Raphu.

10 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel, the son of Sodi.

11 Of the tribe of Joseph, that is of the family of Manasseh, Gaddi, the son of Susi.

12 Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel, the son of Gemalli.

13 Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur, the son of Michael

14 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi, the son of Vophsi.

15 Of the tribe of Gad, Gevel, the son of Machi.

16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to get knowledge about the land. And Moses gave to Hoshea, the son of Nun, the name of Joshua.

17 So Moses sent them to have a look at the land of Canaan, and said to them, Go up into the South and into the hill-country;

18 And see what the land is like; and if the people living in it are strong or feeble, small or great in number;

19 And what sort of land they are living in, if it is good or bad; and what their living-places are, tent-circles or walled towns;

20 And if the land is fertile or poor, and if there is wood in it or not. And be of good heart, and come back with some of the produce of the land. Now it was the time when the first grapes were ready.

21 So they went up and got a view of the land, from the waste land of Zin to Rehob, on the way to Hamath.

22 They went up into the South and came to Hebron; and Ahiman and Sheshai and Talmai, the children of Anak, were living there. (Now the building of Hebron took place seven years before that of Zoan in Egypt.)

23 And they came to the valley of Eshcol, and cutting down a vine-branch with its grapes, two of them took it on a rod between them; and they took some pomegranates and figs.

24 That place was named the valley of Eshcol because of the grapes which the children of Israel took from there.

25 At the end of forty days they came back from viewing the land.

26 And they came back to Moses and Aaron and all the children of Israel, to Kadesh in the waste land of Paran; and gave an account to them and to all the people and let them see the produce of the land.

27 And they said, We came to the land where you sent us, and truly it is flowing with milk and honey: and here is some of the produce of it.

28 But the people living in the land are strong, and the towns are walled and very great; further, we saw the children of Anak there.

29 And the Amalekites are in the South; and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill-country; and the Canaanites by the sea and by the side of Jordan.

30 Then Caleb made signs to the people to keep quiet, and said to Moses, Let us go up straight away and take this land; for we are well able to overcome it.

31 But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.

32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad account of the land they had been to see, saying, This land through which we went is a land causing destruction to those living in it; and all the people we saw there are men of more than common size.

33 There we saw those great men, the sons of Anak, offspring of the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves no more than insects, and so we seemed to them.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2909

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2909. 'In Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron in the land of Canaan' means within the Church. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'Kiriath Arba' as the Church as regards truth, and from the meaning of 'Hebron in the land of Canaan' as the Church as regards good. In the Word, especially the prophetical part, whenever truth is the subject, good also is included, on account of the heavenly marriage that exists in every detail of the Word, see 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712. Here therefore when Kiriath Arba is mentioned, so also is 'Hebron in the land of Canaan'. The land of Canaan is the Lord's kingdom, 1413, 1437, 1607, and locations in that land were in varying ways representative, 1585, 1866.

[2] As regards 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron', this was a region where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dwelt. Abraham's dwelling there is evident from what has gone before,

Abraham came and dwelt in [the oak-groves of] Mamre, which are in Hebron. Genesis 13:18.

And Isaac and Jacob's dwelling there too is evident from what comes further on, Jacob came to Isaac his father in Mamre, to Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. Genesis 35:27.

Joseph was sent by Jacob his father to his brothers, from the Valley of Hebron. Genesis 37:14.

From the representation dealt with already of those three personages it is clear that 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron' represented the Church before Jerusalem did so.

[3] In the course of time every Church deteriorates until it ceases to possess any faith or charity at all, at which point it is destroyed. This too was represented by 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron', that is to say, when this place was occupied by the Anakim, by whom dreadful false persuasions were meant, 581, 1673, regarding which occupation by the Anakim, see Numbers 13:21-22; Joshua 11:21; 14:15; 15:13-14; Judges 1:10. As regards the end or close of the Church and its destruction, this was represented by Joshua's utterly destroying everything in that place, Joshua 10:36-37; 11:21, and by Judah and Caleb's smiting the Anakim, Judges 1:10; Joshua 14:13-15; 15:13-14. The establishment again of a new Church was represented by the allotment of its fields and villages to Caleb as his inheritance, Joshua 21:12. The city itself however became a city of refuge, Joshua 20:7; 21:13, and a city for priests, for the sons of Aaron, Joshua 21:10-11, within the inheritance of Judah, Joshua 15:54.

[4] From this it is evident that Hebron represented the Lord's spiritual Church in the land of Canaan. For the same reason also David was ordered by Jehovah's command to go to Hebron and was there anointed king over the house of Judah; and after he had reigned there for seven years and six months he went to Jerusalem and took possession of Zion, see 2 Samuel 2:1-11; 5:5; 1 Kings 2:11, at which point the Lord's spiritual Church now began to be represented by Jerusalem, and His celestial Church by Zion.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia # 1865

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1865. 'Saying, To your seed I will give this land' means the comfort experienced after these temptations and their horrors, to the effect that people who have charity and faith in Him will become His heirs. This is clear from the meaning of 'seed' and from the meaning of 'land'. 'The seed of Abram' means love and faith that flows from love, as shown already in 255, 256, 1025, and consequently all who have charity and faith in the Lord. 'The land of Canaan' however means the Lord's kingdom, and therefore 'giving the land to your seed' means that the heavenly kingdom would be given as an inheritance to those who from charity have faith in Him.

[2] That these things brought comfort to the Lord following temptations and their horrors becomes clear without explanation. For after those grim events which He had witnessed - that is to say, after He had put to flight the evils and falsities meant by 'the birds of prey that came down on the carcasses and that Abram drove away', described in verse 11 - gross falsities nevertheless entered into Him, such as horrified Him, meant by 'the dread of a great darkness which came over Abram in a deep sleep', described in verse 12. This, together with the fact that in the end sheer falsities and evils took possession of the human race - meant by 'the smoking furnace and flaming torch which passed' between the pieces', referred to in verse 17 - inevitably caused Him distress and grief. Comfort therefore follows now, like that in verses 4 and 5 above, namely that His seed will inherit the land, that is, those who have charity and faith in Him will become heirs of His kingdom. The salvation of the human race was for Him the only comfort, for He was moved by Divine and celestial love and became, even as regards the Human Essence, that Divine and celestial love, in which solely the love for all is countenanced and entertained.

[3] That such is the nature of Divine love becomes clear from the love of parents towards their children, in that it increases with every descending degree of affinity, that is, it becomes greater towards later descendants than towards immediate offspring. Nothing ever exists without a cause or origin, and therefore this love towards descendants, present in the human race and ever increasing with each successive generation, cannot exist without them. The cause and origin of that love are attributable solely to the Lord, from whom all conjugial love and love of parents towards children flow. The source of that love is His love, which is such that He loves all as a father loves his sons, and wishes to make all his heirs, and provides an inheritance for those yet to be born, as he does for those born already.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.