4431. 'The son of Hamor the Hivite' means received from the Ancients. This is clear from the meaning of 'the son', who in this case is Shechem, as interior truth, dealt with immediately above - for 'a son' means truth, see 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623, 3373, 4257; and from the representation of 'Hamor' as the father of that truth, and so truth received from the Ancients. Indeed the truth which was present interiorly within religious observances and within representatives emanated from the Church of old. This being so, Hamor was also named 'the Hivite', for the Hivites were a nation which meant that kind of truth among the Ancients, because that kind of it had existed with them since ancient times. This is the reason why at this point Hamor is called 'the Hivite'.

[2] Actually every nation in the land of Canaan had in ancient times meant some good or else truth of the Church, for the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial, had existed there, 4116. But subsequently the nations there, like every other with whom the Church existed, turned aside into idolatrous practices, and therefore these same nations also mean forms of idolatry. But because the Hivites since ancient times meant interior truth, and because they were one of the more upright nations among whom iniquity had not become so complete, that is, the truth of the Church had not been completely annihilated, as it had among others, the Lord in His Providence therefore preserved the Hivite Gibeonites by means of the covenant which Joshua and the princes made with them, Joshua 9:15. For those Gibeonites were Hivites, see Joshua 9:7; 11:19. From all this one may now see how 'Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite' comes to mean interior truth received from the Ancients.

2691. 'God heard the boy's voice' means help at that point. This is clear from the meaning in the internal sense of 'God hearing the voice 'the words used in the historical sense - as bringing help, and from the meaning of 'the boy' as spiritual truth, dealt with already. Here a state is meant in which the spiritual as regards truth existed, for it is said that 'He heard the boy's voice' and soon after in this verse that 'He heard the boy's voice where he was', that is to say, where he was as to state. And, in the explanations of the verses immediately before, this state was shown to be one of utmost grief because truth had been taken away. The reason it was the boy's voice, not Hagar's, that God is said to have heard is that the state of the spiritual man is the subject. 'The boy', or Ishmael, represents the member of the spiritual Church, 'Hagar his mother' the affection for cognitions of truth, it being within this affection that the grief was felt. Man's rational is born from the affection for factual knowledge as a mother, 1895, 1896, 1902, 1910, 2094, 2524, but his spiritual is born from the affection for cognitions of truth acquired from doctrine, chiefly from the Word. Here the spiritual itself is 'the boy', and the affection for cognitions of truth is 'Hagar'.