6388. 'Issachar' means recompense gained from works. This is clear from the representation of 'Issachar' as mutual love which is earned as a reward or recompense, dealt with in 3956, 3957. Here recompense gained from works is meant, as is evident in the internal sense from every detail mentioned in this prophetic utterance concerning Issachar, in addition to which Issachar in the original language means reward. The reason why 'Issachar' here means recompense gained from works, whereas previously he meant mutual love, is that here one has to understand by Issachar people with whom some kind and appearance of mutual love, that is, of charity towards the neighbour, is present. But they wish to receive recompense for the good deeds they do; thus genuine mutual love or charity is not merely tainted by them but actually perverted. For people with whom genuine mutual love resides enter into the delight and blessedness that is theirs when they. perform good deeds to their neighbour; there is nothing they desire more. That delight and blessedness is what is meant in the Word by 'reward', for delight or blessedness is the reward, and in the next life it becomes the joy and happiness that is experienced in heaven, and so becomes for those people heaven itself. For when those in heaven with whom that love resides perform useful services and good deeds for others, they feel so full of joy and happiness that they seem to themselves to be in heaven for the first time then. This feeling is granted them by the Lord; and He grants it to each one according to the nature of the service he performs.

[2] But that happiness departs the moment they think of recompense, for thought of recompense, even though they already have the true recompense, renders that love impure and corrupts it. The reason for this is that they are now thinking about themselves, not about their neighbour, that is, how they themselves can be made happy, not how others can be unless they themselves benefit from it. Thus they turn love towards the neighbour into love towards themselves; and to the extent that they do so they prevent joy and happiness from being communicated to them out of heaven, since they channel the flow of happiness from heaven into themselves and do not pass it on to others. They are like objects which do not reflect rays of light but absorb them. Objects that do reflect them are lit up and shining, whereas those that absorb them are dull and not at all shining. People who are like this are therefore separated from angelic society, like those who have nothing in common with heaven; and these are the ones who are described here by 'Issachar'.

3957. 'And she called his name Issachar' means the essential nature of it. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, as above in 3923, 3935. For he was given the name Issachar from the word 'reward', a name which therefore embodies the things stated above concerning 'reward', and at the same time the things meant by the rest of the words uttered by Leah. Since 'Issachar' means reward, and 'reward' in the external sense is mutual love and in the internal sense the joining together of good and truth, let it be said that very few nowadays in the Christian world know that 'reward' has such a meaning. And the reason why they do not know is that they do not know what mutual love is, still less that good has to be joined to truth if the heavenly marriage is to exist in a person. I have been allowed in the next life to talk about this to very many who were from the Christian world, including the more learned. But what is surprising, scarcely any one of those I talked to knew anything about it, even though they could have come to know much about those matters for themselves if only they had been willing to use their reason. But because they were not concerned about life after death, only about life in the world, they were not interested in such matters. The things they could have known for themselves if only, as has been stated, they had been willing to use their reason were the following:

[2] a When a person is stripped of the body he has a far more enlightened power of understanding than when he is living in the body, the reason being that when he is in the body worldly and bodily interests occupy his thoughts and bring obscurity there. But once he has been stripped of the body those worldly and bodily interests do not get in the way, but through the removal of his mind from sensory experiences of external things he is like those whose thought is more interior. From this consideration they could have known that in the state after death a person is far more clear-sighted and enlightened than in the state before death, and that when a person dies he passes from shade into that which, in comparison with it, is light, because he passes from the things which belong to the world to those which belong to heaven, and from those which belong to the body to those which belong to the spirit. But what is amazing, although people have the ability to understand these things they still think the contrary. That is to say, they think it is in the state of life within the body that a person enjoys clear-sightedness, as compared with the state of life after being stripped of the body, which to them is a state of obscurity.

[3] b They are able to know, if only they use their reason, that the life which a person acquires to himself in the world follows him when he dies, that is, his life is the same after death. For they are able to know that nobody can cast aside the life he has acquired to himself since earliest childhood except by death itself, and that that life cannot be transformed in a moment into any other life, let alone into a contrary life. For example: Someone who has acquired to himself a life of deceit and finds the delight of his life in that deceit cannot cast aside the life of deceit but goes on with that life after death. Or to take another example, people who are governed by self-love and consequently by forms of hatred and revenge against those who are not subservient, or by other similar traits, continue to be governed by these after the life of the body, for they are the things which they love and which constitute the delights of their life and so their very life itself. Such traits cannot therefore be taken away from them unless everything making up their life is wiped out at the same time. And the same applies to all other kinds of life that people have acquired.

[4] c A person is able to know for himself that when he passes into the next life he leaves many things behind him. He knows - since they have no place there - that he leaves behind, for example, anxious cares over food, clothing, accommodation, and the acquisition of money and wealth, as well as anxious cares about his promotion to positions of importance - matters to which a person gives so much thought during the life of the body. Indeed he knows that other things which do not belong to the earthly kingdom take the place of these.

[5] d From this he is able to know that anyone who in the world has thought about nothing else than worldly things such as these, so much so that they have taken a complete hold on him, and who has acquired a delight of life in those things alone, is not suited to be among those who delight to think of heavenly matters, that is, of things of heaven.

[6] e From this in turn he is able to know that if the external things of the body and of the world are taken away from those people, the individual is in that case such as he has been inwardly, that is to say, he thinks and wills as he did previously. If the thoughts within had at that time been deceits, schemings, aspirations after positions of importance, gain, and reputation on account of these; if hatred and revenge and similar passions have been present within, he goes on thinking such things, and so thinking the things of hell, though to achieve those ends he has concealed his thoughts from other people and to outward appearance has seemed honourable and produced in others the conviction that he was not turning such thoughts over in his mind. Knowledge that such outward appearance or presence at being honourable is removed in the next life may also be had from the fact that outward things are cast aside along with the body and have no further use. From this anyone can decide for himself that a person's real character will then be visible to the angels.

[7] f A person is also able to know that heaven, or the Lord by means of heaven, is constantly at work, flowing in with good and truth. But if there is not within a person's interior man that lives after death of the body some solid surface or some plane so to speak to receive good and truth, these cannot be received at all when they flow in. Therefore while a person is living in the world he ought to be anxious to obtain such an interior plane within himself. But he cannot obtain this unless he thinks of good towards his neighbour, desires for him that which is good, and consequently does this for him, and so acquires to himself the delight of life in such actions. This plane is acquired by means of charity towards the neighbour, that is, by mutual love; and it is what is called conscience. Into this plane good and truth from the Lord are able to flow in and be received there. But where charity does not exist, and so conscience does not exist, good and truth flowing in pass through and are converted into evil and falsity.

[8] g A person is able to know for himself that love to God and love towards the neighbour are what make a person a human being, different from animals, and that those things constitute heavenly life or heaven itself and their opposites hellish life or hell itself. But these things are not known by a person because, for one thing, he has no wish to know them since he is leading a life to the contrary; for another, he does not believe in the existence of life after death; and for yet another, ideas about faith but none about charity have taken hold of him, and therefore he believes, as many teach, that if there is a life after death he can be saved by faith, no matter what kind of life he has led, and that he can be saved if faith is received by him only in his last hour when he is dying.