9387. 'And he rose early in the morning' means joy from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'rising up' as that which implies a raising up towards higher things, dealt with in 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171, 4103; and from the meaning of 'the morning' and 'early' as the Lord and things that come from Him, such as peace, innocence, love, and joy, dealt with in 2405, 2780, 7681, 8426, 8812. The reason why 'the morning' and 'early' mean these things is that the changing seasons through the year of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and also the changing times through the day of morning, midday, evening, and night correspond to just so many states in heaven. Morning accordingly corresponds to the coming and presence of the Lord, which takes place when an angel enters a state of peace, innocence, and heavenly love, and consequently has a feeling of joy. Regarding these correspondences, see 5672, 5962, 6110, 8426, 9213.

9320. 'For you shall utterly destroy them' means that evils must be completely removed. This is clear from the meaning of 'destroying' - when it has reference to evils and falsities, meant by the nations of the land of Canaan and their gods - as removing. The reason why 'destroying' means removing is that those governed by goodness and truth never destroy those ruled by evil and falsity, but merely move them away. This they do because good, not evil, governs their actions, and good comes from the Lord, who never destroys anyone. Those ruled by evil however and consequently by falsity try to destroy, and so far as they can they do destroy those governed by good. This they do because evil rules their actions. But since, when they try to do so, they make their attack on good which comes from the Lord, thus on what is of God, they destroy themselves, that is, they hurl themselves into damnation and into hell. Such is the law of order. And why it is such, see 4299, 7643, 7679, 7710, 7926, 7989, 8137, 8146, 8265, 8945, 8946.

[2] The reason why the Israelites and Jews were to destroy the nations of the land of Canaan was that they themselves represented spiritual and heavenly realities, while the nations represented hellish and devilish things, which can never exist together with those realities since they are opposites. The reason why they were allowed to destroy the nations was that no Church existed among them, only a representative of the Church, so that the Lord was not present among them either except through things of a representative nature, 4307. For they were interested in outward forms but not their inner substances, that is, in the worship that represented goodness and truth but not goodness and truth themselves. People like this are allowed to destroy, kill, and consign to slaughter and complete destruction. But people who are interested in outward forms and at the same time in their inner substance are not allowed to do those things, since their actions must be governed by good, and good comes from the Lord.

[3] The fact that the Jews and Israelites were such is declared explicitly by Moses,

Do not say in your heart, when Jehovah your God has thrust out the nations before you, Because of my righteousness Jehovah has brought me in to possess this land. It is not because of your righteousness and because of the uprightness of your heart; for you are a stiff-necked people. Deuteronomy 9:4-6.

And elsewhere,

They are a nation from whom counsel has perished, nor is there intelligence in them. From the vine of Sodom comes their vine, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, they have clusters of bitterness. The poison of snakes (draco) is their wine, and the cruel poison of asps. Is not this hidden away with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? Deuteronomy 32:28, 32-34.

'The vine' in the internal sense means the Church, 1069, 5113, 6375, 6376, 9277; 'grapes' and 'clusters' mean the internal forms and the external forms of that Church's good, 1071, 5117, 6378; and 'wine' means that Church's internal truth, 1071, 1798, 6377. From this one may see what is meant by the assertions that their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah, that their grapes are grapes of poison and clusters of bitterness, and that their wine is the poison of snakes and the cruel poison of asps. The fact that all this was known to Jehovah, that is, to the Lord, is meant by the remarks about its being hidden away with Him and sealed up in His treasuries.

[4] In John,

Jesus said to the Jews, You are from your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth. John 8:44.

This is why they are called a wicked and adulterous generation, Matthew 12:39, as well as a brood of vipers, Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Luke 3:7. That they were like this is also described by the Lord in His parables in Matthew 21:33-45; Mark 12:1-9; Luke 14:16-24; 20:9ff.

Regarding that nation, that it was the worst nation; that in their worship they were interested in outward forms but not their inner substance; that no Church existed among them, only a representative of the Church; but that nevertheless they were able to represent the internal realities of the Church, see 3398, 3479, 3480, 3732 (end), 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288-4290, 4293, 4307, 4314, 4316, 4317, 4429, 4433, 4444, 4500, 4503, 4680, 4815, 4818, 4820, 4825, 4832, 4837, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4868, 4874, 4899, 4903, 4911-4913, 5057, 5998, 6304, 6832, 6877, 7048, 7051, 7248, 7401, 7439, 8301, 8588, 8788, 8806, 8814, 8819, 8871, 8882, 9284.

6945. 'For they will say, Jehovah has not appeared to you' means the Divine within the Lord's Human. This is clear from the meaning of saying' as perception, dealt with often, in this instance the perception of those who belong to the spiritual Church; and from the meaning of 'Jehovah has appeared' as the appearance of the Lord's Divine within His Human. The fact that this kind of appearance is meant by a visual appearance is self-evident; and the fact that 'Jehovah' is the Lord in respect of the Divine itself and in respect of the Divine Human is dealt with in 1736, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2156, 2329, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5041, 5663, 6281, 6303, 6905. That 'Jehovah has appeared' means the appearance of the Lord's Divine within His Human is also evident from the consideration that His Divine cannot appear to anyone, not even to an angel, except through the Divine Human; nor can the Divine Human except through Divine Truth which goes forth from Him. The subject here in the internal sense is the deliverance of those who belonged to the spiritual Church. Their deliverance was effected by means of the Lord's Coming into the world, see 2661, 2716, 3969, 6854, 6914; and these specifically were saved by means of the Lord's Divine Human, 2716, 2833, 2834.

[2] The implications of this - that those who belong to that Church will not be in possession of faith and so will be unreceptive of what the law from God, represented by 'Moses', says, that is, what the Word says, unless they see signs are as follows: Because they belong to the spiritual Church they do not have a perception of truth from good as people who are celestial do. Instead they acknowledge as the truth all the religious teaching of their Church which they have substantiated for themselves, which means that compared with those who are celestial they dwell in obscurity, 1718, 2831, 2849, 2935, 2937, 3833, 6427, 6500, 6865. This is also made perfectly clear by the fact that they do not at all comprehend how the Lord's Human is able to be Divine, or that God's love within the Human makes it so. For they fix their thought on what is human as they know of it in people generally and do not diverge from this when they think of the Lord; so their minds are in a tangle. The same thing is again made clear by the fact that they also fail to comprehend how a person can be living after death and in that life can have the senses, such as sight, hearing, touch, and smell, or can exist there in a human form. The idea that a person is like this when he lays aside his body along with its senses and members appears to them to be very far from the truth. Thus they are enmeshed in impressions received by the senses and in factual knowledge and illusions that are products of those impressions. If they did not believe therefore that the body is to be rejoined to the soul they would have no belief in any resurrection at all.

[3] From all this one may recognize quite clearly how much obscurity they dwell in regarding the things of heaven. It explains why they cannot have any faith implanted in them at all unless the Lord withholds them from falsities by great force. And since such a force did not exist before the Lord's Coming, only after His Coming when He had made the Human within Himself Divine, they could not be rescued from the lower earth where they were being molested by falsities and be raised to heaven until after the Lord's resurrection, 6914. This then is the reason why it is said that they will not believe and so will be unreceptive of what the law of God, that is, what God's truth, says unless they see proof that it is the truth, which is to say, unless they see signs, described in what follows immediately below.