4069. 'Return to the land of your fathers' means that He had now to bring Himself closer to Divine good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the land of your fathers' as Divine good in this case because it has reference to the Lord, for 'the land', which is Canaan, means the Lord's kingdom, 1607, 3481, and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Human since this Human flows in and makes His kingdom, 3038, 3705; and 'father' means good, 3703. And since the goods and truths by means of which the Lord was to make the Natural Divine had now been acquired - those goods and truths being represented by Jacob's stay with Laban and by the cattle he acquired there - 'returning to the land of your fathers' consequently means bringing Himself closer to Divine good.

3481. I have quite often been in conversation with Jews in the next life. They appear in a forward position on the lower earth below the level of the left foot, and on one occasion I also spoke about the Word, the land of Canaan, and the Lord. I said that the Word contained very deep arcana which are not visible to men. This point they agreed with. After that I said that all the arcana there deal with the Messiah and His kingdom. This also they assented to. But when I told them that Messiah in Hebrew is the same as Christ in Greek they would not listen. And again when I said that the Messiah was the Most Holy One, that Jehovah was within Him, that none other was meant by the Holy One of Israel and by the God of Jacob, and that seeing that He is the Most Holy One none can be in His kingdom except those who are holy not outwardly but inwardly - who are not accordingly under the influence of the filthy love of the world, or of a superior attitude towards other nations, or of hatred for one another - they could not listen to it.

[2] After that I said that the Messiah's kingdom according to prophecy was going to last for ever, and those with Him would also inherit the land for ever. If His kingdom were of this world and they were brought into the land of Canaan it would last only for the few years that constitute the human life-span. Besides, all who had died since the expulsion of the Jews from the land of Canaan would not enjoy such blessedness. From this, I said, they could recognize that the land of Canaan represented and meant the heavenly kingdom; indeed they would recognize it all the more easily, in that they now knew they were in the next life and were going to live for ever, from which it was evident that this next life was the place where the Messiah had His kingdom. And, I continued, if they were allowed to talk to angels they could know that the whole angelic heaven was the Lord's kingdom.

[3] I added that by the new earth, the new Jerusalem, and the new temple described in Ezekiel nothing else could be meant than such a kingdom of the Messiah. To all these points they were unable to make any response apart from weeping bitterly at the prospect of being led into the land of Canaan by the Messiah only to die after so few years and leave behind the blessedness they were to enjoy there.