8995. 'If she is bad in the eyes of her master' means if the affection for truth springing from natural delight is not in agreement with spiritual truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'female slave', to whom the word 'bad' refers, as an affection springing from natural delight, dealt with in 8993, 8994, and from the meaning of 'bad', when it refers to that affection and its relationship with spiritual truth, as being not in agreement with, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'in the eyes of' as in the perception of, dealt with in 2789, 2829, 4083, 4339; and from the meaning of 'master' as spiritual truth, dealt with in 8981.

[2] The implications of all this must be stated. 'A female slave' is an affection for truth springing from the delights that belong to self-love and love of the world, as stated above in 8993, 8994; and this affection is able to be joined to spiritual truth. This may be recognized from the consideration that an affection for spiritual truth is an internal affection or one that resides in the internal man, whereas an affection for truth springing from natural delight resides in the external man. The internal affection that belongs to the spiritual man is joined unceasingly to the external affection that belongs to the natural man, yet in such a way that the internal affection for truth acts as master and the external affection as slave. For it is in keeping with Divine order that the spiritual man should be master over the natural man, 8961, 8967. When the spiritual man is master the person is looking upwards; this is represented by having the head in heaven. But when the natural man is master the person is looking downwards, which is represented by having the head in hell.

[3] To make this transparently clear something more must be stated. By the truths they learn and the good deeds they perform most people hope to acquire some gain from their country, or some important position. If these are regarded as the end in view, the natural man is the master and the spiritual man the slave. But if they are regarded not as the end, only as the means to the end, the spiritual man is the master and the natural man the slave, as accords exactly with the things stated in 7819, 7820. For when people consider gain or position as the means to an end and not the end itself, they are not considering gain or position but the end, which is useful service. A person for example who desires wealth, and acquires it for the sake of useful service which he loves above all things, does not delight in wealth for its own sake; he delights in it for the sake of useful service. The spirit of useful service itself constitutes spiritual life in a person, and the wealth merely serves him as means, see 6933-6938. From this one may also see what the natural man must be like if it is to be joined to the spiritual - it must regard gain and important positions, that is, wealth and eminence, as the means and not the end. What a person regards as the end constitutes the actual life within him, since he loves it more than all things. For what a person loves, that is his end in view.

[4] Anyone who does not know that a person's end in view, or what amounts to the same thing, his love, constitutes the person's spiritual life, consequently that a person is where his love is - in heaven if that love is heavenly, in hell if it is hellish - cannot grasp the situation in these matters. He may suppose that the delight belonging to natural kinds of love - self-love and love of the world - cannot be in agreement with spiritual truth and good. He may suppose this because he does not know that when a person is being regenerated he must be turned upside down, and that when he has been turned upside down he is positioned with his head in heaven, whereas before being turned upside down he was positioned with his head in hell. He was positioned with it in hell when he had the delights of self-love or love of the world as his end in view; but he is positioned with his head in heaven when he has those delights as the means to his end. For the person's end or love, and this alone, has life. The means to the end however have no life of their own but receive life from the end; therefore the means in relation to the final end are called intermediate ends, which have life in the measure that they look to the final end, which is the chief one. So it is that, when a person has been regenerated, consequently when he has loving the neighbour and loving the Lord as his end, he has loving self and the world as the means. When a person is like this, when he looks to the Lord, he rates himself and also the world as nothing. If he does rate himself as something, it is in order that he may be able to serve the Lord. Before this however his attitude had been the opposite. Then he had been full of self-regard and had rated the Lord as nothing; or if had rated Him as something, it had been in order that gain or position might consequently come his way.

[5] All this makes clear the nature of the arcanum concealed in these regulations regarding female slaves from among the daughters of Israel, that is to say, the regulations that although they were slaves they were, if 'good', betrothed to their master who had bought them, or to his son; but if they were 'bad' they were not betrothed but either redeemed or sold, according to the contents of these verses. Betrothing even female slaves, or having them as concubines, was permitted in the representative Church, particularly in the Jewish and Israelite, because a wife represented the affection for spiritual truth, whereas a female slave represented the affection for natural truth, so that a wife represented the internal aspect of the Church with a person, but a female slave the external aspect. The latter was represented by Hagar who was betrothed to Abraham, and also by the two female slaves betrothed to Jacob.

[6] All this now shows what is meant in the internal representative sense by the regulation that 'if she is bad' a female slave cannot be betrothed. That is to say, 'if she is bad' means if the affection springing from natural delight - 'a female slave' - is not in agreement with the spiritual man. This lack of agreement is brought about primarily because that affection wishes to be the master and is of a disposition and mind that cannot be bent towards a love of the Lord. Furthermore the agreement or disagreement of the affection springing from natural delight with the spiritual is determined by the essential nature of them both; but a division of them into their numerous categories would be too long and tedious. A female slave or servant-girl may also mean an affirmative means that serves to join together the external man and the internal man, see 3913, 3917, 3931.

8993. 'And when a man sells his daughter to be a female slave' means an affection for truth springing from natural delight. This is clear from the meaning of 'a man's daughter' as an affection for truth, for an affection is meant by 'daughter', dealt with in 2362, 3963, while truth is meant by 'a man', 3134, as it also is by an Israelite, whom 'a man' refers to here, 5414, 5879, 5951, 7957, 8234; and from the meaning of 'a female slave' as an external or natural affection, dealt with in 2567, 3835, 3849. Consequently 'a man's daughter sold as a female slave' means an affection for truth springing from natural affection and delight.

[2] By natural delight one should understand delight emanating from self-love and love of the world. The people with an affection for truth emanating from these kinds of love are those who learn the teachings of the Church, called the truths of faith, either for the sake of gain or for the sake of important positions, and not for the sake of the life they should lead. Since affections such as this do not emanate from spiritual good but from natural delight they are represented by the daughter of an Israelite man sold as a female slave or servant-girl. For whatever owes its origin to self-love or love of the world is not freedom but slavery. What freedom and slavery are, see 892, 905, 1947, 2870-2893, 6205. The nature of affection for truth arising from those kinds of love is described in the internal sense of what follows next.

[3] It should be borne in mind that a genuine affection for truth consists in willing and desiring to know the real truths of faith with a view to putting them to good use and for the sake of the life one should lead. But an affection for truth which is not genuine consists in willing and desiring truths for selfish reasons, that is, in order to acquire important positions and make monetary gain. Those with an affection for truth that has this origin do not care whether the truths they learn are genuine or not, provided that they are such as can be palmed off as truths. This being so, they confine themselves to endorsing the teachings of the Church in which they were born, regardless of whether those teachings are true or not. They are also in the dark so far as real truths are concerned; for worldly ends or gains, and selfish ¹ ends or important positions make people completely blind.

[4] But those with a genuine affection for truth, that is, those who desire to know truths to put them to good use and for the sake of the life they ought to lead, they too keep to the teachings of the Church, until they reach the age when they begin to think for themselves. Then they examine the Scriptures and pray to the Lord for enlightenment; and when they receive it, their hearts rejoice. For they know that if they had been born where the teachings of the Church are different, indeed where the greatest heresy exists, then - if they had not examined Scripture from a genuine affection for truth - they would have remained in it, as for example they would have done if they had been born Jews, or they had been born Socinians. All this shows who exactly those people are, and what they are like, who have a genuine affection for truth, and who they are, and what they are like, who have an affection for truth that is not genuine. Those with a genuine affection for truth are meant in the representative sense by the daughters of Israelite men; but those with an affection for truth that is not genuine are meant in the representative sense by female slaves from among the daughters of Israel, who are the subject at present.

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