6304. 'And will bring you back to the land of your fathers' means to the state of both Ancient Churches. This is clear from the meaning of 'the land' as the Church, dealt with in 566, 661, 1066, 1067, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118, 3355, 4575, 4447, 5577; and from the meaning of 'fathers' as those who belonged to the Ancient Church and the Most Ancient Church, dealt with in 6075. To the state of both Ancient Churches is said to be meant because the sons of Israel and their descendants, like members of the Ancient Churches, were to represent in specific detail the Lord's celestial and spiritual kingdom. That representation was actually established - among the Jewish nation a representation of the celestial kingdom, and among the Israelite people a representation of the spiritual kingdom. But with that generation nothing of the Church or of the Lord's kingdom could be established, only what was a mere representation, for they wished to see and acknowledge in representatives only what was external, and nothing at all internal.

[2] However, so that the overall representation might be effected, and through it some communication with heaven might exist, and through heaven with the Lord, they were restricted to externals; and at that time the Lord saw to it that communication might take place through external representation alone devoid of any internal. This was the state to which Jacob's descendants could be 'brought back'. Yet inwardly, external representatives among those descendants concealed Divine matters, in the highest sense those which had regard to the Lord's Divine Human, and in the relative sense those which had regard to the Lord's kingdom in heaven and to the Church. This state of both Ancient Churches is what is meant by the promise that God will bring them back to the land of their fathers.

1530. The truth of this could be proved to anyone from the Word, for example, when the Lord revealed Himself to Peter, James, and John, for His face at that time shone like the sun and His garments became white as the light, Matthew 17:2. The sole reason why He appeared to them in this way was that their interior sight had been opened. The same is also confirmed from the Prophets, as in Isaiah when reference is being made to the Lord's kingdom in heaven,

The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Isaiah 30:26.

And in John, where reference is being made to the Lord's kingdom which is called the New Jerusalem,

The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shed light in it; for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. Revelation 21:23.

And elsewhere in the same book,

There will be no night there, nor do they need a lamp or light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. Revelation 22:5.

And in addition when the Lord appeared to Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders, it is said that they saw the God of Israel under whose feet there was so to speak a paved work of sapphire stone, like the substance of the sky for clearness, Exodus 24:10. Because the Lord's celestial and spiritual appears before the external sight of the angels as the Sun and the Moon, 'the sun' in the Word therefore means what is celestial, and 'the moon' what is spiritual.