10640. 'Take care, lest by chance you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land onto which you come' means that there is to be no attachment to any sort of religion involving evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'making a covenant' as being joined together, dealt with in the places referred to in 10632, thus also becoming attached to; from the meaning of 'the inhabitants of the land' as a sort of religion involving evil, for good is meant by 'inhabitant', 2268, 2451, 2712, and in the contrary sense evil, while 'the land' means the Church and whatever constitutes the Church, dealt with in the places referred to in 9325, thus also some sort of religion; and from the meaning of 'onto which you come' as wherever some sort of religion involving evil exists, for the nations occupying the land of Canaan into which [the Israelites] were about to come mean evils and the falsities arising from them, see just above in 10638. From all this it is evident that 'lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land onto which you come' means that there is to be no attachment to any sort of religion involving evil.

[2] Since this is one of the chief matters that serve to enlighten a member of the Church when he reads the Word, and since it forms the subject in what comes next, something must be said about what is implied by it. The person who wishes to be enlightened by the Lord must take special care not to embrace any matter of doctrine as his own if it lends support to evil. The person makes it his own when he corroborates it in his own mind, for by doing so he makes it part of his own beliefs, and all the more so if he lives by it. When this happens the evil remains inscribed on his soul and on his heart; and after that has happened he cannot possibly receive any enlightenment from the Lord through the Word. For his whole mind is permeated with a belief in and love of the fundamental idea he has made his own; and anything that goes against that idea he either fails to see, rejects, or falsifies.

[3] Take for example a person who believes that he is saved by faith alone, irrespective of the kind of life he leads, and who has corroborated this idea in his own mind and linked it to all the other teachings he has adopted, to such an extent that he then gives no thought at all to life, only to faith. Afterwards, no matter how much that person reads the Word, he does not see anything in it that has to do with leading a good life. At length he is unaware of what good, charity, and love are; and if they are mentioned he says that they consist altogether in faith alone. Yet faith alone, or faith without them, is like an empty vessel or like something without a soul. The spiritual life of such a person may be compared to lungs breathing without blood flowing into them from the heart, which is not life at all, apart from being like that of an effigy or robot. These things have been stated in order that people may know what the situation is with a person who reads the Word - that he cannot receive any enlightenment at all from it if he has become attached to any sort of religion that lends support to evil.

10632. 'And He said, Behold, I am making a covenant' means the chief things through which the joining of the Lord to the human race by means of the Word is brought about. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as a joining together, dealt with in 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 1996, 2003, 2021, 6804, 8767, 8778, at this point the joining of Jehovah, that is, of the Lord, to the human race by means of the Word; for this joining together is the subject in what immediately follows. The fact that this is the meaning is also clear from the train of thought in the internal sense. For the subject in what went before was the Law which was laid down and declared from Mount Sinai. That Law serves in a broad sense to mean the Word, 6752, 7463; but also it was the beginning of the Word, for the Word was declared afterwards, first by Moses, then by all the others. The subject in what came next was the Israelite nation, who were not by nature such that the Word could be written among them as it could have been in other circumstances. This was because no Church could be established among them, and where the Church is, so is the Word. See what has been stated and shown on these matters in Chapters 32, 33, and up to here in the present chapter.

[2] But because Moses insisted on the people's behalf that Jehovah should be in their midst and that they should be accepted as an inheritance, and should accordingly be led into the land of Canaan - all of which means in the internal sense that the Church was to be established among that people, and thus that the Word was to be written there - and because these demands were accepted on account of Moses' insistence, the subject now is the chief commandments which had to be kept fully in order that those demands might be met. These commandments required them to worship the Lord alone and no other, and to acknowledge that He was the Source of everything good and true, besides a number of other commandments that form the subject in what immediately follows.

[3] When it is said that these form the subject in what immediately follows it should be recognized that those commandments are contained in the internal sense, whereas the kinds of things that represent them, thus that serve to mean them, are what the external or literal sense contains, as will be clear from the explanation of the things stated next in this chapter of Exodus. But since this covenant which Jehovah made with Moses is said to mean the joining of the Lord to the human race by means of the Word, something must be stated here regarding the nature of such a joining together. In most ancient times members of the Church possessed no Word, only direct revelation; and through this revelation a joining together was accomplished. For when direct revelation exists heaven is joined to those in the world; and the joining of heaven to those in the world constitutes a joining of the Lord to them since that which is Divine and the Lord's among the angels constitutes heaven.

[4] When this direct revelation came to an end, which happened when people turned aside from the good which had governed them, another kind of revelation took its place. This was accomplished by means of representative signs, through which members of the Church at that time knew what was true and good; consequently this Church was called the representative Church. In that Church a Word also existed, but it served that Church alone. When however this Church too was laid waste, which happened when they began to venerate in idolatrous ways those representative signs through which the Church in those times was joined to heaven, and in many lands when they began to use them for magic, the Lord provided for a Word to be written that would be Divine in every single part, even each syllable. It would consist of pure correspondences and so would be suited to the perception of angels in all the heavens, and at the same time to people in the world. And this Word was provided to the end that through it the Lord might be joined to the human race; for unless He had been joined to them through such a Word heaven would have completely departed from mankind, who as a consequence would have ceased to exist.

[5] The subject in what follows therefore is that joining together by means of the Word; and the chief commandments which ought to be kept by a person in order that this joining by means of the Word may exist in him are opened up.

The most ancients possessed direct revelation, see 2895, 3432.

Regarding the representative Church which subsequently took its place, and its Word, 2686, 2897, 3432, 10355.

The Word is the means by which the Lord is joined to the human race, in the places referred to in 10375, 10452.