Arcana Coelestia # 3024
3024.'That you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites' means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'taking a woman' as being joined by means of the marriage covenant; from the meaning of 'my son', namely Isaac, as the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 1893, 2066, 2083, 2630; from the meaning of 'daughters' as affections, dealt with in 489-491, 568, 2362; and from the meaning of 'the Canaanites' as evil, dealt with in 1444, 1573, 1574. Consequently 'the daughters of the Canaanites' are affections incompatible with truth. The subject here is Divine truth which was to be allied to the Divine good of the Lord's Rational, as may be seen in 3013 under 'Contents'. 'A woman' who was to be associated by means of a marriage covenant is used to mean that truth itself which is summoned from the natural man in the normal manner. 'My son' is used to mean the Lord's Rational as regards the good with which it was to be allied or associated. From this one may recognize that the command not to take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. All joining of truth to good is effected by means of affection, for no truth ever enters the rational part of a person's mind or is joined to it except by means of affection, for affection has within it the good that flows from love, which good alone effects the joining together, 1895, as also anyone may know who stops to reflect on it.
[2] As regards 'the daughters of the Canaanites' meaning affections incompatible with truth, that is, affections for what is false, this becomes clear from the meaning of 'daughters'. For the noun 'daughters' occurs in many places in the Word, and in these anyone may see that it is not used to mean daughters. By such expressions as 'the daughter of Zion', 'the daughter of Jerusalem', 'the daughter of Tarshish', 'the daughter of My people', affections for good and truth are meant, as shown in the paragraphs referred to above. And since affections for good and truth are meant so also are Churches, for Churches are Churches by virtue of these affections. Consequently 'the daughter of Zion' means the celestial Church, and means this by virtue of the affection for good, whereas 'the daughter of Jerusalem' means the spiritual Church from the affection for truth, 2362. And it is the same with 'the daughter of My people' in Isaiah 22:4; Jeremiah 6:14, 26; 8:19, 21-22; 9:1; 14:17; Lamentations 2:11; 4:6; Ezekiel 13:17.
[3] This shows what is meant by the daughters of the nations, such as by the daughters of the Philistines, the daughters of Egypt, the daughters of Tyre and Sidon, the daughters of Edom, the daughters of Moab, the daughters of the Chaldeans and Babel, and the daughters of Sodom. They mean affections for evil and falsity, from which their varieties of religion sprang, and so mean those varieties themselves. That this is the meaning of 'daughters' becomes clear from the following places: In Ezekiel,
The daughters of the nations will lament over Egypt. Wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send her down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the lower earth, together with those who go down to the pit. Ezekiel 32:16, 18.
'The daughters of majestic nations' stands for affections for evil. In Samuel,
Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. 2 Samuel 1:20.
In Ezekiel,
You committed whoredom with the sons of Egypt. I delivered you to those who hated you, the daughters of the Philistines. Before your badness was revealed, as at the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all round about her, the daughters of the Philistines who despise you from round about. Ezekiel 16:26-27, 57.
Anyone may see that not daughters were meant here but the varieties of religion among such people as are meant by the Philistines - those who speak repeatedly of faith yet do not at all pursue the life taught by faith, see 1197, 1198. This also explains why they are called 'the uncircumcised', that is, devoid of charity.
[4] In Jeremiah,
Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! Make for yourself vessels of migration, O inhabitant daughter of Egypt. The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame; she has been delivered into the hand of the people from the north. Jeremiah 46:11, 19, 24.
'The daughter of Egypt' stands for the affection for reasoning from facts about whether truths of faith really are true, and so stands for the variety of religion which springs from this, the nature of which is to believe nothing except that grasped by the senses, and so to believe nothing of the truth of faith, see 215, 232, 233, 1164, 1165, 1186, 1385, 2196, 2203, 2209, 2568, 2588. In Isaiah,
He said, You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Isaiah 23:12.
In David,
The daughter of Tyre with an offering, the rich of the people will entreat your face. Psalms 45:12.
What 'the daughter of Sidon' and 'the daughter of Tyre' mean is evident from the meaning of Sidon and Tyre, dealt with in 1201. In Jeremiah,
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom. Your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is at an end. He will no more cause you to migrate; your iniquity will be punished, O daughter of Edom. Lamentations 4:21-22.
In Isaiah,
Like a wandering bird, a scattered nest, will the daughters of Moab be. Isaiah 16:2.
In the same prophet,
Come down and sit on the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit quietly and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for no more will they call you the mistress of kingdoms. Isaiah 47:1, 5.
In Jeremiah,
A people coming from the north, arrayed as a man for war against you, O daughter of Babel. Jeremiah 50:41-42.
In the same prophet,
The daughter of Babel is like the threshing-floor; it is time to thresh her. Jeremiah 51:33
In Zechariah,
Ho, Zion! escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babel. Zechariah 2:7.
In David,
The daughter of Babel has been laid waste. Psalms 137:8.
In Ezekiel,
Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters will return to their condition as of old, and Samaria and her daughters will return to their condition as of old. Ezekiel 16:55.
[5] Anyone may see that in these places 'daughters' is not used to mean daughters but affections incompatible with truth, and so the varieties of religion that spring from them. But which particular varieties they are is evident from the meaning of those peoples - from the meaning of Edom, Moab, the Chaldeans, Babel, Sodom, Samaria, all of which have been dealt with in various places in the explanations to previous chapters of Genesis. From this what is meant in the present chapter by 'the daughters of the Canaanites' becomes clear.
[6] This command not to contract marriages with the daughters of the Canaanites also had regard to the spiritual requirements that good should not be joined to falsity, nor evil to truth, for the result of any such joining together is profanation. The prohibition was also a representative of the matter referred to in Deuteronomy 7:3, and in Malachi,
Judah has profaned the holiness of Jehovah, in that he loved and married the daughter of a foreign god. Malachi 2:11.
Jeremiah 7
1
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
2
"Stand in the gate of Yahweh's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.
3
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4
Don't trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, are these.
5
For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
6
if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
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then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.
8
Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.
9
Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
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and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations?
11
Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.
12
But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
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Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer:
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therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
15
I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
16
Therefore don't pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
17
Don't you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19
Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; [do they] not [provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?
20
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
22
For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
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but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
24
But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25
Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26
yet they didn't listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.
27
You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.
28
You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29
Cut off your hair, [Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30
For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
31
They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, nor did it come into my mind.
32
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place [to bury].
33
The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
34
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
