351. Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed. This symbolizes wisdom springing from celestial love in those people who will be in the New Heaven and in the Lord's New Church.

In the highest sense Reuben symbolizes omniscience; in the spiritual sense, wisdom, intelligence and knowledge, also faith; and in the natural sense, sight. Here, however, Reuben symbolizes wisdom, because he comes after Judah, who symbolizes celestial love, and celestial love produces wisdom. For there is no love without its partner, which is knowledge, intelligence, or wisdom. The partner of natural love is knowledge; that of spiritual love is intelligence; and that of celestial love is wisdom.

[2] Reuben symbolizes these three because his name was derived from a word meaning to look or see, and natural sight spiritually is knowledge, spiritual sight is intelligence, and celestial sight is wisdom.

Reuben was also Jacob's firstborn, and therefore Israel called him "my might, the beginning of my strength, excellent in eminence and excellent in valor" (Genesis 49:3). Of such a character also is wisdom springing from celestial love.

Moreover, because by virtue of his primogeniture Reuben represented and so symbolized the wisdom possessed by people of the church, therefore he urged his brothers not to kill Joseph, and he grieved when he found Joseph not in the pit (Genesis 37:21-22, 29-30).

For the same reason his tribe camped on the south side of the Tabernacle, and the tribes camped on that side were called the Camp of Reuben (Numbers 2:10-16). The south, too, symbolizes wisdom springing from love. Consequently people in heaven who have that wisdom dwell toward the south (see the book Heaven and Hell, 148-150nos. ).

This wisdom is symbolized by Reuben in the prophetic utterance of Deborah and Barak:

Among the divisions of Reuben were great resolves of heart... Why do you sit among the packs, (Issachar,) to hear the rustling of the flocks? To listen to the divisions of Reuben (where there are) great searchings of heart? (Judges 5:15-16)

The divisions of Reuben are concepts of every kind, which have to do with wisdom.

[3] Because the tribes all symbolize their opposites as well, so too does the tribe of Reuben; and in an opposite sense he symbolizes wisdom divorced from love, and thus also faith divorced from charity. Therefore his father Israel cursed him (Genesis 49:3-4). And therefore he was deprived of his primogeniture (1 Chronicles 5:1; see no. 17 above). For the same reason, too, the tribe was given an inheritance in the Trans-Jordan and not in the land of Canaan. And Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph's sons, were acknowledged in the place of Reuben and Simeon (Genesis 48:5).

Nevertheless, he still retained the representation and consequent symbolism of wisdom.

242. 2. Their first son, Cain, killed his brother Abel, and God did not dissuade him by talking with him beforehand, but simply cursed him after the fact. Since Adam and his wife mean the earliest church, as just noted [241], Cain and Abel as their first sons mean the two essential qualities of that church, love and wisdom, or charity and faith. Abel means love and charity, and Cain means wisdom or faith, particularly wisdom separated from love or faith separated from charity. When faith has been separated, wisdom tends not only to reject love and charity but to destroy them, killing its own brother.

It is reasonably well known in Christian circles that this is what faith does when it is separated from charity--see Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Faith.

[2] The curse of Cain is about the spiritual state that people who separate faith from charity, or wisdom from love, arrive at after death. However, in order to prevent the death of wisdom or faith, a mark is placed on Cain so that no one will kill him [Genesis 4:15]. This is because love cannot exist without wisdom, or charity without faith.

Since the meaning of this is very much like the meaning of eating from the tree of knowledge, it follows right after the description of Adam and his wife. People who have separated faith from charity are wrapped up in their own intelligence; while people who have faith because of their caring have a gift of intelligence from the Lord and are in sympathy with divine providence.