Each of the four gospels contains a story about Jesus appearing to His disciples after the Sunday morning when they had found the sepulcher empty. For example, see Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-19; Luke 24:13-33; John 20:19-31, and John 21.

In Luke, there’s a story of two disciples walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, a walk of about seven miles. Shortly after they leave the city they are approached by another traveler who has noticed their troubled faces and serious talk and asks them what is troubling them. Walking along together, they ask the stranger, “Haven’t you heard of the troubles in Jerusalem, how the prophet from Galilee, who we hoped would be the one to save Israel, was given up to be crucified? And strange to say, when some of the women went on the third day to anoint His body, they saw angels who told them that he was not there but was risen from the dead.”

On hearing this, the traveler chides them for not believing, and says “Don’t you see that Christ had to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” The stranger then tells the two disciples many things concerning Jesus, from the books of Moses, and the prophets, in the Old Testament. The two disciples listen with awe, but do not recognize the stranger. At length they arrive at Emmaus. The stranger appears to want to go on when the two stop, but they beg him to stop also, because it’s getting late in the day, and they want to hear more. So they all sit down to share the evening meal, and when the stranger takes up the loaf of bread and breaks it and gives them pieces, their eyes are opened and they recognize Him, and He vanishes.

One can imagine the stunned awe that came over them both as they realized that this was Jesus. They knew He was crucified, and yet He had walked and talked to them for several hours. The women were right! The angels were right! He was alive!

The New Church believes that there are internal meanings to all the stories in the Word of the Lord, the sacred scriptures, and that this internal meaning, within the literal stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joshua, Samuel, David, and the rest, and all the sayings of the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, and the four gospels… this meaning is what makes the Word holy.

So what can we see here in this story? Well, that internal meaning in “Moses and the prophets” is the story of Jesus’ life in the world, from His birth in Bethlehem through all His growing years until His “death” and then His rising. Because Jesus knew that, and had certainly read the Scriptures and understood them internally, He knew for a long time how His earthly life was going to close, and that it was necessary for it to close as had been “written”, in order to save the human race. So He told the two disciples that story as they walked toward Emmaus.

More about that walk... In the Word, any mention of walking is really referring to how we live our lives from day to day. In many stories of the Word, it is said that someone walked with God. It is said that we should walk in His ways and that we should walk the straight and narrow path.

Also in this story we are told that this was a journey of sixty stadia (in the original Greek). Sixty (or other multiples of "six") represents the lifelong work of rejecting the temptations that come from our inborn selfishness. Apocalypse Explained 648. So, this journey to Emmaus means our life’s journey - as a person that is trying to follow the Lord’s teachings and become an angel.

The destination was Emmaus. In the Word any city represents a doctrine, an organized set of truths that we have put in order so that we can live according to them -- our rules of life. See Arcana Coelestia 402. They are not necessarily good, as with Jerusalem or Bethlehem, but can also be evil doctrines, e.g. Sodom or Babylon. My dictionary tells me that the name Emmaus means “hot springs”. Another universal meaning in the Word is that water means truth in its beneficial uses, but can also mean truth twisted into falsity by those in hell, in an opposite sense. See, for example, Arcana Coelestia 790. Think of the wells that Abraham dug, or the waters that Jesus promised to the woman of Samaria as they talked by Jacob’s well, or the pure river of water flowing out from under the throne in the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. In its converse sense, where water is destructive, think of the flood that destroyed all but Noah and his family, or the Red Sea that had to be parted so that the children of Israel could cross. The springs represented by Emmaus were holy truths bubbling up from the Word for us to use. And these are hot springs, and heat means love. So that's our destination, where truth and love together are flowing out for us to use, in a continual stream from the Lord.

This plain little anecdote about the disciples meeting the Lord on the road to Emmaus isn't just a story about Jesus's resurrection with a spiritual body. It is also a story of how we should be living our lives. We can be traveling toward heaven, listening to the Lord, walking in the way with him, and at the end He will break bread and have supper with us.

4444 .'When they heard; and the men were grieved and blazing with anger' means that they were under the influence of evil that was directed against the truth of the Church among the Ancients. This is clear from the meaning of 'being grieved and blazing with anger' here as being under the influence of evil. Its direction against the truth of the Church among the Ancients follows because the anger was against Shechem the son of Hamor, who means the truth known to the Ancients, as stated above in 4430, 4431. Their being under the influence of evil is evident from details given further on, namely that they spoke deceitfully, verse 13, and then after Shechem and Hamor had submitted to their demands they killed them, verses 26-29. Consequently 'being grieved' here and 'blazing with anger' mean that they were under the influence of evil. Their action looks like zeal aroused in them because he had lain with their sister, to judge by the words which immediately follow 'because he had done something disgraceful in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, a thing that ought not to be done' - and by those at the end of the chapter 'They said, Is he going to treat our sister like a prostitute?' verse 31. But it was not zeal, for zeal cannot possibly exist with someone who is under the influence of evil, only with one governed by good; for zeal has good within it, 4164.

[2] The semblance of religion which existed among their descendants did indeed have good within it, in that all its details, each one, represented the celestial and spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom. But in the case of those with whom it existed it did not hold anything good at all since they were confined solely to external things devoid of internal, as shown above. It is the same with the semblance of religion possessed by that nation among whom it exists even at the present day. They acknowledge Moses and the Prophets, and so the Word. In itself this is holy but in their case it is not holy, for within every detail there they see themselves and so that which is worldly. Indeed they turn the Word into something earthly, for they do not know or even care about anything heavenly within it. If the state of a people is like this, no good can exist in them when their own semblance of religion holds sway over them. Instead evil is present, for nothing heavenly enters into them because they will annihilate it.

[3] There was a law, also known in the Ancient Church, according to which anyone who ravished a virgin had to provide her with a dowry and take her to be his wife, as the following words in Moses laid down,

If a man persuades a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall endow her with a dowry to be his wife; if her father utterly refuses to give her to him he shall weigh silver according to the dowry of virgins. Exodus 22:16-17.

And elsewhere,

If a man finds a young woman, a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman's father fifty pieces of silver, and she shall become his wife, because he ravished her; and he will not be able to divorce her all his days. Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

The fact that this same law was known to the Ancients is quite evident from Shechem's words to the young woman's father and brothers,

Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, Let me find grace in your eyes, and I will give that which you tell me. Increase the dowry and gift to any size and I will give you whatever you tell me, and give me the young woman for a wife. Verses 11-12.

Also, because Shechem was willing to fulfill this law and Dinah's brothers gave their consent provided he became as they themselves were, by circumcising every male, according to the words that follow

Only on this [condition] will we consent to you: If you will be as we are, by circumcising every male among you, then we will give our daughters to you, and your daughters we will take to ourselves, and we will dwell with you, and we wit be one people. Verses 15-16

- it is therefore evident that they did not act in conformity with the law, thus were not motivated by good, but acted contrary to the law, and consequently were motivated by evil.

[4] The law forbade them, it is true, to enter into marriages with the gentile nations, as laid down in Moses,

Lest you take their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go whoring after their gods, and they cause your sons to go whoring after their gods. Exodus 34:16.

And elsewhere,

You shall not establish a marriage relationship with the nations; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son, for he will turn your son from following Me, to serve other gods. Deuteronomy 7:3-4.

But this law referred to idolatrous nations. It was laid down to prevent their turning away, through such marriages, from truly representative worship to idolatrous worship; for once they became idolaters they were no longer able to represent the celestial and spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom, only their opposites, namely the things of hell. In fact, once they were idolaters, they summoned from hell a certain devil whom they worshipped and to whom they applied Divine representatives. This accounts for its being said that they were not to go whoring after their gods. That law was also laid down for the further reason that 'the nations' means evils and falsities with which the goods and truths which they represented were not to be mingled, and therefore devilish and hellish things were not to be mingled with celestial and spiritual ones, 3024 (end).

[5] But they were in no way forbidden to contract marriages with nations who willingly adopted their worship and who, after being circumcised, acknowledged Jehovah. These they called sojourners sojourning with them, of whom the following is said in Moses,

If a sojourner sojourns with you and wishes to keep the Passover to Jehovah, every male he has shall be circumcised, and then he shall come near and keep it; and he will be as an inhabitant of the land. There shall be one law for the inhabitant and for the sojourner who sojourns in the midst of you. Exodus 12:48-49.

And elsewhere,

When the sojourner has sojourned with you, he shall keep the Passover to Jehovah according to the statute for the Passover, and according to the regulations ¹ for it. There shall be one statute for you, both for the sojourner and for the native of the land. Numbers 9:14.

The reason why they were called sojourners sojourning in the midst of them and with them was that 'sojourning' meant receiving instruction, and so 'a sojourner' those who allowed themselves to receive instruction in statutes and matters of doctrine, see 1463, 2025, 3672. In the same author,

If a sojourner should sojourn with you who would make a fire-offering of an odour of rest to Jehovah, he shall do as you do. As for the assembly, one statute shall there be for you and for the sojourner who sojourns, an eternal statute throughout your generations. As you are, so shall the sojourner be before Jehovah. There shall be one law and one judgement for you and for the sojourner sojourning with you. Numbers 15:14-16.

And elsewhere,

As the native among you shall the sojourner sojourning with you be to you.

Leviticus 19:34.

One judgement shall there be for you; it shall be for the sojourner as for the native. Leviticus 24:22.

[6] The fact that this statute was known not only to Jacob and his sons but also to Shechem and Hamor is evident from the words spoken by them. For the statutes, judgements, and laws which were given to the Israelite and Jewish nation were not new but such as existed previously in the Ancient Church and in the second Ancient Church which, from Eber, was called the Hebrew, as has been shown in various places. The consequent knowledge of this law is evident from the words of Jacob's sons,

Jacob's sons said to Hamor and Shechem, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to a man who has a foreskin; for that would be a reproach to us. Only on this [condition] will we consent to you: If you will be as we are, by circumcising every male among you, then we will give our daughters to you, and your daughters we will take to ourselves, and we will dwell with you, and we will be one people. Verses 14-16.

That knowledge is also evident from Hamor and Shechem's words, in that they not only consented but also did cause themselves and every male of their city to be circumcised, verses 18-24.

[7] This shows that Shechem became a sojourner such as is referred to in the Law, and so could take Jacob's daughter as a wife; and that their killing them was accordingly an unmentionable deed, as Jacob also bore witness before his death, Genesis 49:5-7. The fact that not only Judah but also Moses, as well as the kings of the Jews and Israelites, and many of the people too, married wives from gentile nations is clear from the historical sections of the Word; and one should not doubt that those wives accepted their statutes, judgements, and laws and were acknowledged as sojourners.

Footnotes: