Arcana Coelestia # 7111
7111.'To the taskmasters over the people and to their officers, saying' means those in the nearest position to molest, and those in the nearest position to receive. This is clear from the meaning of 'the taskmasters' as those who compel people to serve, dealt with in 6852, and since they do so by means of molestations, 'the taskmasters' also means those who molest, but those in the nearest position to carry it out, who are dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the officers' as those in the nearest position to receive. For the officers came from the children of Israel, but the taskmasters from the Egyptians, as is evident from what follows. Thus in the internal sense 'the officers' are those in the nearest position to receive, and 'the taskmasters' those in the nearest position to molest.
[2] Who exactly are meant may be recognized from those in the next life who molest, introducing falsities and evils, and those who receive these and pass them on. Those who molest, introducing falsities and evils, are the hells. But to achieve their purpose they send out from themselves emissaries through whom they act; and these make their appearance no great distance away from those who are molested. This is done for the reason that the thoughts and intentions of many may by focused through them; otherwise such thoughts and intentions would become diffuse. Those emissaries appear in particular places of their own in the world of spirits, and from the actual places where they appear one can recognize which hell they come from. Some appear overhead at varying heights and angles; others alongside the head, to the right or left as well as behind it; and others again below the head, on various levels in relation to the body, from the head right down to the soles of the feet. They flow in with the kinds of things that are emitted from hell, but a spirit or man can only feel them, and therefore only know of them, as things that are inside himself, as things that he himself thinks and intends. Those emissaries are called 'subordinates', see what has already been shown from experience regarding them in 4403, 5856, 5983-5989. Since these are in the nearest position to molest they are meant by 'the taskmasters'. But those who receive things from them and pass them on are 'the officers'; they are also intermediary spirits. For as stated above, the officers came from the children of Israel, but the taskmasters came from the Egyptians.
[3] Among the Israelite and Jewish people 'officers was a name given to those who were required to tell the people what they had to do, and who were to give orders. For this reason they also sat with the judges and elders in the gates, and told the people the judgements that had been made as well as the commands issued by the leader, as becomes clear from the following places: In Moses,
You shall appoint 1 judges and officers in all your gates according to your tribes, who will judge the people with righteous judgement. 2 Deuteronomy 16:18.
In the same author,
When they go out to war the priest shall speak to the people and warn them that they should not be afraid. After that the officers shall say that he who has built a house should go back, and also the fearful. Deuteronomy 20:1-3, 5, 8, 9.
In Joshua,
Joshua gave orders to the officers to say to the people that they should prepare provisions for the journey, before they crossed the Jordan. Joshua 1:10-11.
In the same book,
At the end of three days it happened, when the officers passed through the middle of the camp, that they gave orders [to the people, saying] that when they saw the ark of the covenant of Jehovah they too were to set out. Joshua 8:33.
The officers' were overseers of the people, distinct and separate from the princes or leaders of the people, see Deuteronomy 1:15. They were distinct and separate from the elders too, Deuteronomy 31:28, and also from the judges, Joshua 8:33.
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Joshua 8
1
Yahweh said to Joshua, "Don't be afraid, neither be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, with his people, his city, and his land.
2
You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king, except its spoil and its livestock, you shall take for a plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it."
3
So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night.
4
He commanded them, saying, "Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don't go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5
I, and all the people who are with me, will approach to the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them.
6
They will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, 'They flee before us, like the first time.' So we will flee before them,
7
and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for Yahweh your God will deliver it into your hand.
8
It shall be, when you have seized on the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do this according to the word of Yahweh. Behold, I have commanded you."
9
Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua stayed among the people that night.
10
Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
11
All the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up, and drew near, and came before the city, and encamped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between him and Ai.
12
He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13
So they set the people, even all the army who was on the north of the city, and their ambush on the west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.
14
It happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn't know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15
Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
16
All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
17
There was not a man left in Ai or Beth El who didn't go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel.
18
Yahweh said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand." Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
19
The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city, and took it. They hurried and set the city on fire.
20
When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.
21
When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and killed the men of Ai.
22
The others came out of the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. They struck them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.
23
They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
24
It happened, when Israel had made an end of killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and struck it with the edge of the sword.
25
All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
26
For Joshua didn't draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
27
Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took for prey to themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which he commanded Joshua.
28
So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.
29
He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening, and at the sundown Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day.
30
Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal,
31
as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh, and sacrificed peace offerings.
32
He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
33
All Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, who carried the ark of Yahweh's covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.
34
Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
35
There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua didn't read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them.
