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Genesis 15

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1 After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Have no fear, Abram: I will keep you safe, and great will be your reward.

2 And Abram said, What will you give me? for I have no child and this Eliezer of Damascus will have all my wealth after me.

3 And Abram said, You have given me no child, and a servant in my house will get the heritage.

4 Then said the Lord, This man will not get the heritage, but a son of your body will have your property after you.

5 And he took him out into the open air, and said to him, Let your eyes be lifted to heaven, and see if the stars may be numbered; even so will your seed be.

6 And he had faith in the Lord, and it was put to his account as righteousness.

7 And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.

8 And he said, O Lord God, how may I be certain that it will be mine?

9 And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.

10 All these he took, cutting them in two and putting one half opposite the other, but not cutting the birds in two.

11 And evil birds came down on the bodies, but Abram sent them away.

12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.

13 And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years;

14 But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.

15 As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place.

16 And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full.

17 Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.

18 In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,

20 And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,

21 And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #2913

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2913. 'And spoke to the sons of Heth, saying' means those with whom a new spiritual Church was to exist. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'Heth' and of Hittite. Many were the nations inhabiting the land of Canaan who are mentioned one by one in various places in the Word, among them the Hittites, see Genesis 15:20; Exodus 3:8, 17; 13:5; 23:23; Deuteronomy 7:1; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 11:1, 3; 12:8; 24:11; 1 Kings 9:20; and elsewhere. Most of them belonged to the Ancient Church which was spread through many lands, including the land of Canaan, see 1238, 2385. All who belonged to that Church acknowledged charity as the chief thing, and everything they taught was about charity or life. People who cultivated teachings about faith were called Canaanites and were separate from the rest of the inhabitants in the land of Canaan, Numbers 13:29 - see 1062, 1063, 1076.

[2] The Hittites belonged among those in the land of Canaan who were more acceptable. This is also made clear by the fact that Abraham, and subsequently Isaac and Jacob, dwelt among them and had a burial-place there, and also by the fact that they treated Abraham with greatest respect, as is quite clear from what is recorded about them in this chapter, especially verses 5-6, 10-11, 14-15. Since they were an upright nation they therefore represent and mean the spiritual Church, or the truth of the Church. But it happened that like all the others who belonged to the Ancient Church the Hittites fell away in the course of time from charity or good that goes with faith; and this explains why later on they mean the falsity of the Church, as in Ezekiel 16:3, 45, and elsewhere. Yet the Hittites did belong among those who were more honourable, as may be seen from the fact that David had Hittites with him, such as Ahimelech, 1 Samuel 26:6, and Uriah, who was a Hittite, 2 Samuel 11:3, 6, 17, 21 - by whose wife Bathsheba David begot Solomon, 2 Samuel 12:24. 'Heth' means exterior cognitions that have regard to life and which constitute the external truths of the spiritual Church, 1 see 1203.

[3] The subject in the present verse is a new Church which the Lord establishes when the previous one breathes its last, and in the verses which follow the subject is the reception of faith among those people. The subject is not some particular Church among the sons of Heth but in general the re-establishment by the Lord of a spiritual Church after its predecessor fades away and approaches its end. The sons of Heth are simply those who represent and carry a spiritual meaning. Please see what has been stated already about Churches in the following places:

In course of time a Church goes into decline and decay, 494, 501, 1327, 2422.

It departs from charity, and brings forth evils and falsities, 1834, 1835.

At that point the Church is said to be vastated and made desolate, 407-411, 2243.

The Church is established among gentiles; the reason why, 1366.

Within a Church undergoing vastation something of the Church is always preserved as a nucleus, 468, 637, 931, 2422.

If the Church did not exist in the world the human race would perish, ibid.

The Church is like the heart and lungs in that vast body, of which every member of the human race is a part, 637, 931, 2054, 2853.

The nature of the spiritual Church, 765, 2669.

Charity constitutes the Church, not faith separated from charity, 809, 916.

If all possessed charity the Church would be one even though they differ in matters of doctrine and in forms of worship, 1285, 1316, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 2385.

All people on earth who belong to the Lord's Church, though they are scattered throughout the entire world, still so to speak make a single whole, as is the case in heaven, 2853.

Every Church is internal and external, and both together constitute a single Church, 409, 1083, 1098, 1100, 1242.

The external Church is valueless if there is no internal Church, 1795.

The Church is compared to the rise and the setting of the sun, to the seasons of the year, and also to the periods of the day, 1837.

The Last Judgement is the final period of the Church, 900, 931, 1850, 2117, 2118.

Footnotes:

1. Or, reading what Swedenborg has in his rough draft the truths of the external spiritual Church

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.