3024.'That you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites' means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'taking a woman' as being joined by means of the marriage covenant; from the meaning of 'my son', namely Isaac, as the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 1893, 2066, 2083, 2630; from the meaning of 'daughters' as affections, dealt with in 489-491, 568, 2362; and from the meaning of 'the Canaanites' as evil, dealt with in 1444, 1573, 1574. Consequently 'the daughters of the Canaanites' are affections incompatible with truth. The subject here is Divine truth which was to be allied to the Divine good of the Lord's Rational, as may be seen in 3013 under 'Contents'. 'A woman' who was to be associated by means of a marriage covenant is used to mean that truth itself which is summoned from the natural man in the normal manner. 'My son' is used to mean the Lord's Rational as regards the good with which it was to be allied or associated. From this one may recognize that the command not to take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. All joining of truth to good is effected by means of affection, for no truth ever enters the rational part of a person's mind or is joined to it except by means of affection, for affection has within it the good that flows from love, which good alone effects the joining together, 1895, as also anyone may know who stops to reflect on it.

[2] As regards 'the daughters of the Canaanites' meaning affections incompatible with truth, that is, affections for what is false, this becomes clear from the meaning of 'daughters'. For the noun 'daughters' occurs in many places in the Word, and in these anyone may see that it is not used to mean daughters. By such expressions as 'the daughter of Zion', 'the daughter of Jerusalem', 'the daughter of Tarshish', 'the daughter of My people', affections for good and truth are meant, as shown in the paragraphs referred to above. And since affections for good and truth are meant so also are Churches, for Churches are Churches by virtue of these affections. Consequently 'the daughter of Zion' means the celestial Church, and means this by virtue of the affection for good, whereas 'the daughter of Jerusalem' means the spiritual Church from the affection for truth, 2362. And it is the same with 'the daughter of My people' in Isaiah 22:4; Jeremiah 6:14, 26; 8:19, 21-22; 9:1; 14:17; Lamentations 2:11; 4:6; Ezekiel 13:17.

[3] This shows what is meant by the daughters of the nations, such as by the daughters of the Philistines, the daughters of Egypt, the daughters of Tyre and Sidon, the daughters of Edom, the daughters of Moab, the daughters of the Chaldeans and Babel, and the daughters of Sodom. They mean affections for evil and falsity, from which their varieties of religion sprang, and so mean those varieties themselves. That this is the meaning of 'daughters' becomes clear from the following places: In Ezekiel,

The daughters of the nations will lament over Egypt. Wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send her down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the lower earth, together with those who go down to the pit. Ezekiel 32:16, 18.

'The daughters of majestic nations' stands for affections for evil. In Samuel,

Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. 2 Samuel 1:20.

In Ezekiel,

You committed whoredom with the sons of Egypt. I delivered you to those who hated you, the daughters of the Philistines. Before your badness was revealed, as at the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all round about her, the daughters of the Philistines who despise you from round about. Ezekiel 16:26-27, 57.

Anyone may see that not daughters were meant here but the varieties of religion among such people as are meant by the Philistines - those who speak repeatedly of faith yet do not at all pursue the life taught by faith, see 1197, 1198. This also explains why they are called 'the uncircumcised', that is, devoid of charity.

[4] In Jeremiah,

Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! Make for yourself vessels of migration, O inhabitant daughter of Egypt. The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame; she has been delivered into the hand of the people from the north. Jeremiah 46:11, 19, 24.

'The daughter of Egypt' stands for the affection for reasoning from facts about whether truths of faith really are true, and so stands for the variety of religion which springs from this, the nature of which is to believe nothing except that grasped by the senses, and so to believe nothing of the truth of faith, see 215, 232, 233, 1164, 1165, 1186, 1385, 2196, 2203, 2209, 2568, 2588. In Isaiah,

He said, You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Isaiah 23:12.

In David,

The daughter of Tyre with an offering, the rich of the people will entreat your face. Psalms 45:12.

What 'the daughter of Sidon' and 'the daughter of Tyre' mean is evident from the meaning of Sidon and Tyre, dealt with in 1201. In Jeremiah,

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom. Your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is at an end. He will no more cause you to migrate; your iniquity will be punished, O daughter of Edom. Lamentations 4:21-22.

In Isaiah,

Like a wandering bird, a scattered nest, will the daughters of Moab be. Isaiah 16:2.

In the same prophet,

Come down and sit on the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit quietly and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for no more will they call you the mistress of kingdoms. Isaiah 47:1, 5.

In Jeremiah,

A people coming from the north, arrayed as a man for war against you, O daughter of Babel. Jeremiah 50:41-42.

In the same prophet,

The daughter of Babel is like the threshing-floor; it is time to thresh her. Jeremiah 51:33

In Zechariah,

Ho, Zion! escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babel. Zechariah 2:7.

In David,

The daughter of Babel has been laid waste. Psalms 137:8.

In Ezekiel,

Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters will return to their condition as of old, and Samaria and her daughters will return to their condition as of old. Ezekiel 16:55.

[5] Anyone may see that in these places 'daughters' is not used to mean daughters but affections incompatible with truth, and so the varieties of religion that spring from them. But which particular varieties they are is evident from the meaning of those peoples - from the meaning of Edom, Moab, the Chaldeans, Babel, Sodom, Samaria, all of which have been dealt with in various places in the explanations to previous chapters of Genesis. From this what is meant in the present chapter by 'the daughters of the Canaanites' becomes clear.

[6] This command not to contract marriages with the daughters of the Canaanites also had regard to the spiritual requirements that good should not be joined to falsity, nor evil to truth, for the result of any such joining together is profanation. The prohibition was also a representative of the matter referred to in Deuteronomy 7:3, and in Malachi,

Judah has profaned the holiness of Jehovah, in that he loved and married the daughter of a foreign god. Malachi 2:11.

2520. 'And he said, Lord, will You kill even a righteous nation?' means, Would the good and truth of doctrine be done away with? This is clear from the meaning of 'nation' as good, dealt with in 1259, 1260, 1416. And because the words 'a righteous nation' refer to 'the nation of Abimelech', who means the doctrine of faith, they are used here to mean both good and truth, since both are the subject matter of doctrine.

[2] The fact that these words were uttered from a zeal that went with an affection or love towards the whole human race may be evident to anyone. Such love was directing the Lord's thoughts even when He had not yet put off the human from the mother. And although He perceived from the Divine that the doctrine of faith had a wholly celestial origin, nevertheless in order that the needs of the human race, which does not receive anything of which it cannot form some idea from its own rational thought, might be met, it is therefore said, 'Will You kill even a righteous nation?' meaning, Would the good and truth of doctrine be done away with? The fact that a person does not receive anything of which he cannot form some idea from his rational thought may be seen from the ideas which a person entertains regarding Divine arcana. The latter always have some idea attached to them that is derived from worldly objects or things analogous to worldly objects by which they are retained in the memory and reproduced in thought. For without ideas derived from worldly objects a person is unable to engage in thought. If therefore truths from a Divine origin were presented naked they would never be accepted because they would go far beyond his range of understanding, and so beyond his faith as well, most of all in the case of those whose worship is external.

[3] Let the following examples illustrate this: The Divine itself cannot reside in anything except that which is Divine, and so only in the Lord's Divine Human, and with man through His Human. If the rational were consulted it would say that the Divine itself can reside in the human of anyone. Again nothing holy exists which does not proceed from the Lord, and so from the Divine, which is one. If the rational were consulted it would say that what is holy may also spring from other sources.

[4] Again, man does not live from himself, do good from himself, believe the truth from himself, or indeed think from himself. The good and truth that he does or believes come from the Lord, but the evil and falsity come from hell. And what is more, hell - that is, those who are in hell - do not think from themselves but, in the same way as man, are recipients of the Lord's good and truth. If the rational were consulted it would reject all those ideas because it would not comprehend them. It would also reject the idea that nobody is rewarded on account of the good he does and of the truth he teaches. And it would reject the idea that what is external does not accomplish anything, only what is internal, insofar as the affection for good is present in the doing of good, and insofar as from this the affection for truth is present in the teaching of truth, and insofar as the things are not done from oneself. So also with a thousand other examples that could be given.

[5] Such being the nature of the human rational, the Word therefore uses expressions that accord with man's capacity to understand, and also with his inherent disposition. And this explains why the internal sense of the Word is different from its literal sense. This becomes quite clear from the Old Testament Word where most things are stated in ways that accord with the capacity to understand and the inherent disposition of the people who lived in those times. As a consequence little, indeed scarcely anything, is mentioned there about the life after death, about eternal salvation, and about the internal man. Indeed the character of the Jewish and Israelitish people with whom the Church existed at that time was such that if these matters had been disclosed to them they would not only have failed to understand them but would also have ridiculed them. If similarly it had been disclosed to them that the Messiah or Christ was going to come and save their souls for ever, this too they would have rejected as something of no importance, as also becomes clear from the same nation today. And it is so still that if what is internal or spiritual is mentioned in their presence, and the fact that the Messiah is not going to be a very great earthly king, they laugh at it.

[6] This was the reason why the Lord sometimes spoke in the way the Prophets had spoken and expressed all else by means of parables, as He Himself states in Matthew,

Jesus said, I speak to them in parables, because those who see do not see, and those who hear do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:13.

'Those who see' and 'those who hear' are those inside the Church who, though they see and hear, nevertheless do not understand. And in John,

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and are converted and I heal them. John 12:40.

Their being 'converted' and being 'healed' implies that even so they would subsequently reject and in so doing profane, which entails eternal condemnation, see 301-303, 582, 1008, 1010, 1059, 1327, 1328, 2051, 2426. Nevertheless the Lord in many places disclosed the interior things of the Word, but solely for the benefit of the wise.