10429. 'And behold, it is a stiff-necked people' means that they do not receive the inflow from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'stiff-necked' as not receiving an inflow; for 'the neck' means the joining together and communication of things above and those below, and so means influx, see 3542, 3603, 3695, 3725, 5320, 5328, 5926, 6033, 8079, 9913, 9914, while 'stiff' means that which resists and rejects, and so means that which does not receive. The people are called such here because their interest lay in external things and not in what was internal; and those who are like this reject every inflow from heaven or from the Lord. For the inflow passes through the internal into the external, and therefore when the internal is closed there can be no reception within the external of that which is Divine. Only what flows in from the world is received, thus only that which is worldly, bodily, and earthly. Furthermore when such people in the next life are beheld in the light of heaven they seem to have instead of a head and face something that is all teeth, looking like a crate, or else something covered in hair, or something bony devoid of life. For the face corresponds to the things that constitute the internal man, and the body to those that constitute the external, while the neck corresponds to the joining together of them.

[2] A brief explanation must be given here showing what should be understood when in reference to that nation it is said that their interest lay in external things and not in what was internal. Every person has an internal and an external, the internal consisting in his thought and will, the external in his speech and action; but the internal with those who are good is very different from what it is with those who are bad. For every individual person has an internal, called the internal man, and an external, called the external man. The internal man has been created so as to conform to an image of heaven, but the external man to conform to an image of the world, 9279. In the case of those who are governed by the good of love and the truths of faith the internal man is open, and by means of it they are in heaven. But in the case of those who are ruled by evils and resulting falsities that internal man is closed, and by means of the external they are aware of nothing but the world.

[3] These are the ones whose interest is said to lie in external things and not in what is internal. Such people as well do, it is true, have inner thoughts and feelings; but in their case they are inner thoughts and feelings of their external man residing in the world, not inner thoughts and feelings of the internal man residing in heaven. When the internal man is closed the inner thoughts and feelings of the external are bad, indeed foul; for then people give thought only to the world and self, and desire solely things belonging to the world and self. They give no thought whatever to heaven and the Lord, and indeed have no desire for them. All this goes to show what should be understood by being interested in external things and not in what is internal.

[4] Because the Israelite nation was like this, when they were brought into an outwardly holy state their inner thoughts and feelings were closed off because they were foul and defiled. That is to say, those inner thoughts and feelings were full of selfish and worldly love, thus full of contempt for others in comparison with themselves, full of hatred towards all who wronged them, full of savage intentions towards them, and full of cruelty, avarice, pillage, and other similar vices. The fact that that nation was like this is perfectly clear from the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32:15-43, where they are described, as commanded by Jehovah, ¹ also from wherever they are mentioned in Jeremiah, and finally from the Lord's own words in the Gospels.

Footnotes: