445. Of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand sealed, signifies faith and salvation. This is evident from the representation and consequent signification of "Issachar" and his tribe, as being that which makes heaven and salvation with man, for "Issachar" in the original means reward, and love and faith are what make heaven and salvation with man, consequently both are signified by "the tribe of Issachar." "Reward" is frequently spoken of in the Word, as "that reward is to be received," and by it is understood eternal life, salvation, and by many, heavenly joy; and in the nearest sense this is the signification of "reward." If a man is living according to the Lord's commandments, it is permissible for him to think of eternal life, salvation, and heavenly joy; but it is not permissible for him to keep his mind intent upon reward, for if he does so he has reward as an end, and easily falls into the thought that by his life he deserves heaven and salvation, and this thought causes him to have regard to self in every particular, and such regard to self removes him from heaven; for so far as man looks to self in what he does, he does not look to heaven. Because of this, "reward" signifies in the Word that in which heaven and salvation are, that is, in general, love and faith, and thence intelligence and wisdom, for in these are salvation and heaven, and consequently heavenly joy, so far as man does not think about reward. From this the signification of "Issachar" and his tribe can be seen.

[2] Here faith is signified, because "the tribe of Simeon" signifies obedience, and "the tribe of Levi" signifies good works, and they who are in good works from obedience are in faith; while such as are in the goods of life from the spiritual affection of truth and good are in charity, and they who are in the goods of life from celestial affection are in love to the Lord. This, too, is the way in which angels are distinguished in the heavens: those who are in the goods of life from a celestial affection are in the inmost or third heaven; those who are in the goods of life from a spiritual affection are in the middle or second heaven; and those who are in good works from obedience are in the lowest or first heaven, and these also are said to have faith, for the things they hear from the sense of the letter of the Word and from preachers they believe according to their apprehension, but they neither see nor perceive whether they are true, therefore their thought about what is to be believed is called faith; for that is properly called faith which is believed without intellectual sight and perception as to its being so, consequently such persons can believe falsity equally with truth. But when what is believed is seen and perceived this is not called faith, but apperception and perception; for the understanding illustrated by the Lord sees, and the will is affected, and action flows from the two.

[3] "Issachar" and his tribe here signify faith, because these three tribes, from each of which were twelve thousand sealed, mean all who are in the lowest or first heaven; and they who are in that heaven are said to be in good works from obedience, and in faith. Moreover, many of these call faith alone the essential of salvation, and yet do not separate faith from good works, for they say that faith is bestowed upon them by the Lord because they are in good works, and that if they were not in good works faith would not be given. But those who separate faith from good works, and declare it to be the sole means of salvation, and that they are saved by it howsoever they live, confirming this by their life, such are not in the lowest heaven but are in hell.

[4] Those who have regard to reward on account of the good works they do, and thus place merit in works, are meant by "Issachar" in the prophecy of Israel respecting his sons:

Issachar is a bony ass couching down between the burdens. And he shall see rest that it is good, and the land that it is pleasant; and he shall bow his shoulder to bear burdens, [and shall be one who serves for hire] (Genesis 49:14, 15).

Here "Issachar" signifies reward or recompense on account of works; "a bony ass" signifies the lowest servitude; "couching down between the burdens" signifies life among works; "and he shall see rest that it is good" signifies works of good without recompense full of felicity; "and the land that it is pleasant" signifies that those who are in the Lord's kingdom are in such felicity; "and he shall bow his shoulder to bear burdens" signifies that they, nevertheless, labor in every work; "and shall be one who serves for hire" signifies with a view to merit. (For further explanation of this see Arcana Coelestia 6387-6394.)

[5] But those who do not place merit in the good works they perform, by having regard for reward, but place heaven and the felicity of eternal life in thinking and willing well, and thence in acting well, and are in the spiritual affection of truth and good, which is with those who are in the heavenly marriage, that is, in the marriage of good and truth; such are meant by these words in Moses:

Of Zebulun he said, Be glad, Zebulun, in thy going out; and Issachar in thy tents. They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall sacrifice sacrifices of righteousness; for they shall suck the abundance of the seas, and the hidden things of the secret things of the sand (Deuteronomy 33:18, 19).

This is said of those who are in the marriage of good and truth, that is, in truths in respect to the understanding and thought, and in goods in respect to the will and affection. "Zebulun" signifies that marriage, and "Issachar" the affection of truth and good; "to be glad in thy going out" signifies to have delight in all genuine truths and goods, "going out" signifying all things, because it signifies the ultimate, the effect, and the conclusion; "to be glad in the tents" signifies in all worship; "to call the peoples unto the mountain" signifies, because such are in heaven, where there is the good of love; "to sacrifice the sacrifices of righteousness" signifies worship from truths that are from good; "to suck the abundance of the sea" signifies to imbibe the truths of doctrine from the Word, and thus intelligence; and "to suck the hidden things of the secret things of the sand" signifies the spiritual things that lie concealed in the sense of the letter of the Word.

[6] Because "the tribes of Judah, of Issachar, and of Zebulun," signified the heaven where the good of love is, "the tribe of Judah" that good itself, "the tribe of Issachar" its affection, and "Zebulun" its conjunction with truths:

These three tribes pitched to the east of the tent of meeting (Numbers 2:3-9);

for in heaven those dwell to the east who are in the good of love and thus in the affection of good and truth, and in the marriage or conjunction of these, that is, in truths in respect to doctrine and in goods in respect to life.

24. 4. People who live lives based on truth and have good intent; and also the nature of truths that come from what is good. Truth that leads to what is good and truth that comes from what is good, and how they differ: 2063. Truth is not true in essence except to the extent that it comes from something good (4736, 10619), because it is from goodness that truth gets its underlying reality (3049, 3180, 4574, 5002, 9144) and its life (3111, 2434, 6077). This is also because truth is the form or outward nature of goodness: 3049, 4574, 5951, 9154. The truth we have relates directly to the goodness we have; the amount and quality of both in us are the same: 2429. For anything true to be true, it must get its essence from our leading a life of caring and innocence: 3111, 6013. The truths that come from leading a good life are spiritual truths: 5951.

[2] Truth that comes from goodness is able to unite itself to goodness so thoroughly that the two become one: 4301, 7835, 10252, 10266. Our understanding and will make one mind and one life when our understanding is subordinate to our will, because our understanding is the part of us that is receptive to truth and our will is the part of us that is receptive to goodness; but this oneness does not occur when what we think and say is at variance with what we intend: 3623. Truth that comes from goodness is truth that lives in our will and in our actions: 4337, 4353, 4385, 4390. When truth comes from goodness, an image of that goodness remains present in that truth: 3180.

[3] Throughout the entire heaven and the entire world and in their every detail, there is some form of a marriage (54, 718, 747, 917, 1432, 2173, 2516, 5194); especially between what is true and what is good (1094, 2173, 2508). This is because everything in the universe, in order to be anything at all, must go back to what is good and what is true; and in order to accomplish anything, must be the result of their being joined together: 2451, 3166, 4390, 4409, 5232, 7256, 10122, 10555. The ancients established [a custom of referring to] truth and goodness as partners in a marriage ¹ : 1904. According to the Lord's words, the law of marriage is that two should become one: 10130, 10168, 10169. True marriage love comes down from heaven from the marriage of what is true and what is good and becomes manifest: 2728, 2729.

[4] The more we are focused on goodness and on the truths that result from it, the wiser we are; no matter how much truth we know, however, if we are not focused on leading a good life wisdom will not be ours: 3182, 3190, 4884. When we have the truths that come from leading a good life, we are actually lifted out of this world's light into heaven's light ² -out of dimness, then, into clarity. On the other hand, as long as we only know about truths but are not practicing any goodness, we remain in this world's light and in dimness: 3190, 3191. We do not even know what goodness is until we are practicing it and learning from it: 3325, 3330, 3336. Truths grow by leaps and bounds when they come from leading a good life: 2846, 2847, 5345. More on this growth: 5355. This growth happens the way trees bear fruit and seeds multiply to make whole gardens: 1873, 2846, 2847. Wisdom grows to the same extent as well, and this goes on forever: 3200, 4220, 4221, 5527, 5859, 6663. Not only that, to the extent that we have gained truths from leading a good life, to that extent we are enlightened, and to that extent we experience enlightenment when we read the Word: 9382, 10548, 10549, 10550, 10691, 10694. Good actions that we do out of love are like fire, and the insights into truth that result are like light from that fire: 3195, 3222, 5400, 8644, 9399, 9548, 9684. In fact, the truths we learn from living a good life actually do shine in heaven: 5219. The truths we learn from leading a good life, which are the basis of wisdom, increase in proportion to the quality and amount of our love for doing good, and conversely falsities that we absorb from leading an evil life are proportional to the quality and amount of our love for doing evil: 4099. When we are given truths through leading a good life, we come into angelic intelligence and wisdom. These lie hidden within us as long as we are living in this world, but they are opened up for us in the other life: 2494. People who have truths from leading a good life become angels after they die: 8747.

[5] Truths that arise from goodness come in something like successive generations: 9079. They are arranged in sequences: 5339, 5343, 5530, 7408, 10303. The arrangement of truths that arise from goodness is like that of the fibers and blood vessels in our bodies and the complex tissues and structures they form to serve the useful functions of life: 3470, 3570, 3579, 9454. Truths that arise from goodness take the form of a kind of city within us, and this is caused by an inflow from heaven: 3584. At the center are the truths that accompany our primary love, while other concepts are distanced from that center to the extent that they fail to harmonize with [the central truths]: 3993, 4551, 4552, 5530, 6028. For evil people, though, falsity is at the center: 4551, 4552. When the truths we have are a result of our leading a good life, they are arranged in heaven's form (4302, 5339, 5343, 5704, 6028, 10303); and this agrees with the pattern in which heavenly communities are arranged (10303). All truths that result from leading a good life are connected to each other by a kind of kinship, like the branches of families descended from the same ancestor: 2863. Everything true also has an aura ³ reaching out from it into heaven according to the nature and extent of the goodness that is its source: 8063. The marriage of what is good and what is true is the church and heaven for us: 2731, 7752, 7753, 9224, 9995, 10122. The pleasure and happiness felt by people whose truths have goodness inside them: 1470.

[6] When our truths are brought together by goodness, they present an image of us: 8370. As individuals, we are nothing more nor less than our goodness and truth, or our evil and falsity: 10298.

[7] To summarize, we come to faith through truths: 4353, 7178, 10367. We come to caring about our neighbor through truths: 4368, 7623, 7624, 8034. We come to love for the Lord through truths: 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645. We come to conscience through truths: 1077, 2053, 9113. We come to innocence through truths: 3183, 3494, 6013. We come to purification from evils through truths: 2799, 5954, 7044, 7918, 9088, 10229, 10237. We come to regeneration through truths: 1555, 1904, 2046, 2189, 9088, 9959, 10028. We come to intelligence and wisdom through truths: 3182, 3190, 3387, 10064. Truths beautify angels and therefore also beautify us at the deeper levels of our spirit: 553, 3080, 4985, 5199. We gain power against things that are evil and false through truths: 3091, 4015, 10488. Truths are means of bringing [inner things] into the kind of order that is characteristic of heaven: 3316, 3417, 3570, 5339, 5343, 5704, 6028, 10303. We come to the church through truths: 1798, 1799, 3963, 4468, 4672. We come to heaven through truths: 1900, 9832, 9931, 10303. We become human through truths: 3175, 3387, 8370, 10298. All these things come about, though, by means of truths that arise from goodness and not from truths apart from goodness; and goodness comes from the Lord: 2434, 4070, 4736, 5147. All that is good comes from the Lord: 1614, 2016, 2904, 4151, 9981.

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