172. Internal Meaning of Daniel, Chapter 1(1)

1-2 When the church among the Jewish nation had been destroyed, Babylon appropriated to herself all things pertaining to it. (2)

2-21 She wished to know all things of the church, and to acquire an understanding of them, and this was the beginning of Babylon. (2)

Chaldea was a land lying along the Euphrates river near its mouth, south of Babylon, part of what is now southern Iraq. It was a land of the Lord's second great church, the Ancient Church, which at its height had a wealth of knoweldge through its own sacred scriptures and the correspondences of nature. But as this church declined Chaldea came to represent people who use truths for evil purposes and thus profane and falsify them. Abram was born in Chaldea because of the greatness it had represented, but had to leave because of what it had become.