Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".

10652. 'And their daughters go whoring after their gods, and they cause your sons to go whoring after their gods' means profanation thereby of goodness and truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'whoring' as being linked together unlawfully, dealt with above in 10648; from the meaning of 'their daughters', or the daughters of the inhabitants of the land, as affections for evil; from the meaning of 'their gods' as the falsities belonging to the affections for evil which have been linked to truths (for by 'their gods' the gods of the daughters of the inhabitants of the land linked in marriage to the sons of the Israelite nation should be understood, dealt with immediately above in 10651), and this linking is the profanation of good; and from the meaning of 'causing your sons to go whoring after their gods' as a linking of truth to falsities, which is the profanation of truth. For the meaning of 'gods' as falsities, see 4402(end), 4544, 7873, 8867; and for that of 'sons' as truths, 489, 491, 533, 1147, 3373, 4257, 9807, 10490.

[2] These matters are stated in this way because the first linking of the affections for evil to truths, meant by 'taking the daughters of the inhabitants of the land for your sons', does not as yet constitute profanation; but the second linking does constitute it, for this is brought about when evil is applied to truth and truth is applied to evil, which is done by misconstruing truth and applying it to evil, thus by incorporating one in the other. As a result truth ceases to be truth any longer; it is ruined and profaned.

[3] Such profanation is also meant by the people's committing whoredom with the daughters of Moab, spoken of in Moses as follows,

Israel settled down in Shittim, where the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods. Therefore Jehovah said to Moses, Take all the chiefs ¹ of the people, and hang them up for Jehovah before the sun. And the people were struck down, and twenty-four thousand died from that plague. Numbers 25:1-4, 6, 9.

'Moab' means those who adulterate forms of good, see 2468, 8315, 'the daughters of Moab' affections for that evil, and 'committing whoredom with them' profanation. Consequently the punishment was the hanging up of the people's chiefs before the sun, and the death of twenty-four thousand. For 'the sun' of this world means self-love, 10584, and 'being hung up before it' the total extermination of heavenly good [by self-love]. And 'twenty-four thousand' means all forms of truth and the good of truth in their entirety, the same as 'twelve thousand', 2089, 3913, 7973, and 'the death' of that number of people the extermination of all truths. This is what happens to profaners.

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