Judges 1: The continuing conquest of Canaan.

The book of Judges follows on almost seamlessly from Joshua. It is called ‘Judges’ because a number of regional leaders arose and made judgments for the people, often actively defending Israel from outside oppression. A pattern emerges in Judges: Israel disobeys the Lord – an enemy oppresses Israel – the Lord raises a leader – the leader is victorious against the enemy – there is peace for a time – Israel disobeys the Lord again.

There were twelve judges in all, about whom we either hear very much or next to nothing. The number twelve (as with the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve disciples, and other examples in the Word), stands for all the various aspects of spirituality that we need to understand, develop, and put to use. A clue is often found in the meaning of their names, because biblical names are nearly always linked to spiritual qualities, such as ‘courage’, or ‘one who walks with God’ (see Swedenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 10216).

The theme of this first chapter is the further conquest of the land. The Israelites asked the Lord, “Who shall go up and fight for us?” And the Lord said that the tribe of Judah would go, because the Lord had delivered the land into their hand. Judah then called on the tribe of Simeon to join them, and they won many battles against the Canaanites still in the land.

One Canaanite king, Adoni-bezek, fled and was captured by the Israelites, who then cut off his thumbs and big toes. Adoni-bezek said that God had dealt justice by punishing him, as he had previously cut off seventy kings’ thumbs and big toes, and they had to gather scraps of food under his table.

Then Caleb, a leader of Israel during the journey through the wilderness, said that the man who took Kirjath-sepher (Caleb’s inheritance city) from the Canaanites would marry his daughter, Achsah. Caleb’s nephew, Othniel, took the city and Achsah was given to him. Achsah asked her father for the blessing of springs of water, and Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

Next, spies were sent to Bethel. They met a man there, and said that if he directed them the entrance to the city, they would show him mercy. He helped them, and they took the city but showed mercy on the man and all his family. After all of this, the man built a new city called Luz in the land of the Hittites.

The chapter ends by listing the twelve tribes, as well as the Canaanite peoples who remained unsubdued in each of their territories.

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The overarching spiritual theme of Judges is the process of our regeneration. As the opening of Judges reminds us, there were still parts of the land and various tribes that Israel needed to conquer. In fact, the Israelites never finished driving enemies out of their land. In the same way, we need to control our inherited human nature, but it is never completely wiped out (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Love and Wisdom 238).

During regeneration, we will discover deeper and subtler self-centered states in ourselves, which need to be mitigated. Each judge raised by the Lord stands for our determination to deal with these states, using the Word as a guide. This brings us a period of peace, followed by the start of another personal discovery.

When the Israelites chose which tribes would fight for them, it was no coincidence that they selected Judah and Simeon. Judah (who was a prominent tribe of Israel) and Simeon (who usually acts with another tribe) stand for the highest things in our spiritual life: our love for the Lord, and our obedience to the Lord’s Word. Choosing Judah and Simeon as our strength will always bring victory in our regeneration (see Arcana Caelestia 3654 and Apocalypse Explained 443).

The spiritual meaning in the story of Adoni-bezek is about taking away the power of our self-love, as cutting off thumbs and big toes makes hands and feet virtually useless. When we work on our lower nature, we are to minimize its control over us. It is the same with any influences from hell; their power must end. Adoni-bezek’s comment about doing the same to seventy kings vividly describes how self-love can only lead to our downfall (Arcana Caelestia 10062[4]).

The delightful story of Caleb, Achsah and Othniel illustrates that after battle, there is rest and reward. In the same way, we strengthen the ‘marriage’ of good and truth in us after overcoming spiritual struggles (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Love and Wisdom 409). The springs of water given to Achsah stand for the truths which flow into our mind, both about the ‘upper’ things of the Lord and heaven, and those ‘lower’ ones about spiritual life and responsibility.

The episode about the man from Bethel means that when we open up our life to the Lord to allow Him to guide us, we become blessed (Arcana Caelestia 3928). Then our life can be re-built in very practical and good ways, represented by the Hittites.

The final mention of the Canaanites still in the land points to the continuing presence of our unregenerate qualities. Although we may progress through the work of regeneration, we are still human, and we will always have flaws left to improve on.

410. (12) Love or the will joins itself to wisdom or the intellect, and causes wisdom or the intellect to be joined to it in return. The fact that love or the will joins itself to wisdom or the intellect is apparent from their correspondence with the heart and lungs.

Anatomical observation shows that the heart is engaged in its life's motion when the lungs are no longer or not yet engaged in theirs. Observation shows this from the empirical evidence of people who suffer loss of consciousness and those who are suffocated, and from that of fetuses in the womb and chicks in the egg.

Anatomical observation also shows that during the time the heart alone is functioning, it forms the lungs and so equips them that it may be able to breathe there, and that it forms all the rest of the organs as well in order to be able to carry on various useful activities in them - the organs of the face in order to be able to feel sensation, the organs of motion in order to be able to act, and the rest of the organs in the body in order to be able to accomplish useful ends corresponding to the affections of love.

[2] It follows from this, first, that as the heart produces such effects for the sake of the various functions it is going to carry on in the body, so love in its recipient vessel called the will produces like effects for the sake of the various affections which compose its form - that form being the human form, as we have shown above.

Now because the first and most immediate affections of love are an affection for knowing, an affection for understanding, and an affection for seeing that which it knows and understands, it follows that love forms for them the intellect, and that it enters into these affections actually when it begins to feel sensation and to act, and when it begins to think.

That the intellect contributes nothing to this effort follows from the parallel with the heart and lungs, as discussed above.

[3] It can be seen from this that love or the will joins itself to wisdom or the intellect, and not wisdom or the intellect to love or the will. And it follows from this as well that the knowledge which love acquires for itself from an affection for knowing, and the perception of truth which it acquires from an affection for understanding, and the thought that it acquires from an affection for seeing that which it knows and understands, are not properties of the intellect, but are the properties of love.

[4] Thoughts, perceptions, and consequently knowledge do indeed flow in from the spiritual world. But still they are received not by the intellect, but by love in accordance with its affections in the intellect. It appears as though the intellect receives them, and not love or the will, but that is a fallacious appearance.

It also appears as though the intellect joins itself to love or the will, but that, too, is a fallacious appearance. Love or the will joins itself to the intellect and causes the intellect to be joined to it in return. That the intellect is joined to it in return is owing to the marriage of love with it. Because of that marriage a seemingly reciprocal conjunction is formed by the life and consequent power of love.

[5] The like is the case with the marriage of good and truth, for goodness is a property of love, and truth a matter of the intellect. Goodness initiates everything, and it receives truth into its home and unites itself with it in the measure that it accords. Goodness can also admit truths that do not accord, but it does so because of its affection for knowing, understanding and thinking, when it has not yet determined itself to useful applications which are its ends and which it calls its goods.

A reciprocal conjunction, or one of truth with good, does not occur at all. That truth is joined to good in return is owing to the life belonging to good.

[6] It is because of this that every person, and every spirit and angel, is regarded by the Lord in accordance with his love or goodness, and no one in accordance with his intellect or truth apart from his love or goodness. For a person's life is his love, as we have shown above, and his life is what it is according as he has elevated his affections by truths, that is, according as he has perfected his affections in accord with wisdom. For love's affections are elevated and perfected by truths, thus by wisdom; and love then acts in conjunction with wisdom, as though prompted by it, but doing so of itself through wisdom, as through a form its own, which takes nothing whatever of its quality from the intellect, but everything from some determination of love, called affection.