54. We can see from the following passages that circumcision represented purification from evils that are caused by strictly earthly love:

Circumcise your heart and take away the foreskin of your heart, so that my wrath will not break forth because of the ill will of your deeds. (Jeremiah 4:4)

Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and no longer stiffen your neck. (Deuteronomy 10:16)

To circumcise the heart or the foreskin of the heart is to purify ourselves from evils.

Conversely, then, being uncircumcised or having a foreskin refers to people who have not been purified from evils caused by strictly earthly love and who are therefore not devoted to caring, and since having a foreskin means being unclean at heart, it says that no one who is uncircumcised at heart or uncircumcised in the flesh is to enter the sanctuary (Ezekiel 44:9); that no uncircumcised person is to eat the Passover meal (Exodus 12:48); and that the uncircumcised are damned (Ezekiel 28:10; 31:18; 32:19).

3039. 'He will send His angel before you' means Divine Providence. This is clear from the meaning of 'angel' in the Word as the Lord, though which aspect of the Lord it is appears from the train of thought, as dealt with in 1925. The aspect meant here is clearly Divine Providence. The reason why the Lord is meant in the Word by 'angels' is that everything spoken in the Word through the Prophets and all others, though dictated by angels, is received from the Lord, that is, it is the Lord's Own. Angels in heaven also acknowledge and perceive that nothing good or true originates in themselves but in the Lord; indeed so great is their acknowledgement and perception that they turn away from everything that suggests any other idea. This explains why 'angels', that is to say, good ones, are used to mean the Lord, though which aspect of the Lord it is appears from the train of thought.