Arcana Coelestia # 10647
10647. 'Lest by chance you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land' means being linked thereby to any other sort of religion that has evil in it. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as a joining or linking together, dealt with in 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 1996, 2003, 2021, 6804, 8767, 8778, so that 'making a covenant' means being linked to; and from the meaning of 'the inhabitants of the land' as a religion involving evil, dealt with above in 10640. Whether you say a religion involving evil or the evil of a religion, it amounts to the same thing. The injunction that no covenant was to be made with the inhabitants of the land is repeated here on account of the train of thought in the internal sense.
Leviticus 24:8-9
8
Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh continually. It is on the behalf of the children of Israel an everlasting covenant.
9
It shall be for Aaron and his sons; and they shall eat it in a holy place: for it is most holy to him of the offerings of Yahweh made by fire by a perpetual statute."
