2909. 'In Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron in the land of Canaan' means within the Church. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'Kiriath Arba' as the Church as regards truth, and from the meaning of 'Hebron in the land of Canaan' as the Church as regards good. In the Word, especially the prophetical part, whenever truth is the subject, good also is included, on account of the heavenly marriage that exists in every detail of the Word, see 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712. Here therefore when Kiriath Arba is mentioned, so also is 'Hebron in the land of Canaan'. The land of Canaan is the Lord's kingdom, 1413, 1437, 1607, and locations in that land were in varying ways representative, 1585, 1866.

[2] As regards 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron', this was a region where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dwelt. Abraham's dwelling there is evident from what has gone before,

Abraham came and dwelt in [the oak-groves of] Mamre, which are in Hebron. Genesis 13:18.

And Isaac and Jacob's dwelling there too is evident from what comes further on, Jacob came to Isaac his father in Mamre, to Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. Genesis 35:27.

Joseph was sent by Jacob his father to his brothers, from the Valley of Hebron. Genesis 37:14.

From the representation dealt with already of those three personages it is clear that 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron' represented the Church before Jerusalem did so.

[3] In the course of time every Church deteriorates until it ceases to possess any faith or charity at all, at which point it is destroyed. This too was represented by 'Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron', that is to say, when this place was occupied by the Anakim, by whom dreadful false persuasions were meant, 581, 1673, regarding which occupation by the Anakim, see Numbers 13:21-22; Joshua 11:21; 14:15; 15:13-14; Judges 1:10. As regards the end or close of the Church and its destruction, this was represented by Joshua's utterly destroying everything in that place, Joshua 10:36-37; 11:21, and by Judah and Caleb's smiting the Anakim, Judges 1:10; Joshua 14:13-15; 15:13-14. The establishment again of a new Church was represented by the allotment of its fields and villages to Caleb as his inheritance, Joshua 21:12. The city itself however became a city of refuge, Joshua 20:7; 21:13, and a city for priests, for the sons of Aaron, Joshua 21:10-11, within the inheritance of Judah, Joshua 15:54.

[4] From this it is evident that Hebron represented the Lord's spiritual Church in the land of Canaan. For the same reason also David was ordered by Jehovah's command to go to Hebron and was there anointed king over the house of Judah; and after he had reigned there for seven years and six months he went to Jerusalem and took possession of Zion, see 2 Samuel 2:1-11; 5:5; 1 Kings 2:11, at which point the Lord's spiritual Church now began to be represented by Jerusalem, and His celestial Church by Zion.

581. That 'the Nephilim' means those who, persuaded of their own prominence and superiority, treated everything holy and true as being worthless is clear from what comes before and directly after; that is to say, they immersed matters of doctrine in their own evil desires, which is what is meant by the statement about the sons of God going in to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. Persuasion concerning self and its own delusions also grows as more and more things enter in, till at length that persuasion is inerasable. And when doctrinal matters concerning faith are added as well, utterly persuasive assumptions cause them to treat everything holy and true as being worthless, and they become Nephilim. As has been stated, this set of people who lived before the Flood are such that all spirits are choked to death by their absolutely dreadful delusions which spread from them like a sphere that is poisonous and choking. Spirits are so choked to death by them that they do not know how to think, and as a result feel semi-dead. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had freed the world of spirits from so pernicious a set of people, no one could possibly have stayed on there, and so the human race, which the Lord governs by means of spirits, would have perished. Consequently these people are now detained in a hell beneath what looks like a misty solid rock, beneath the heel of the left foot. Nor do they ever try to escape. The world of spirits is accordingly free of that extremely dangerous crew. That crew and the thoroughly poisonous sphere of persuasions from it will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with as a separate subject. ¹ These are the people called the Nephilim, and they treat all that is holy and true as being worthless.

[2] Further mention is made of them in the Word, though their descendants were called Anakim and Rephaim. The fact that they were called Anakim is clear in Moses,

The men who explored the land of Canaan said, We saw the Nephilim there, the sons of Anak who were descendants of the Nephilim; and in our own eyes we were like locusts, and so we were in their eyes. Numbers 13:33.

The fact that they were called Rephaim is clear once again in Moses,

The Emim lived formerly in the land of Moab, a people great and many, and tall like the Anakim. The Rephaim were also considered to be as Anakim; and the Moabites called them Emim. Deuteronomy 2:10-11.

The Nephilim are not mentioned again, but the Rephaim are. In the Prophets the description of them fits what has been said about them already, as in Isaiah,

Hell beneath has been stirred up for you, to meet you as you come. He has roused the Rephaim for you. Isaiah 14:9

This refers to the hell where such people are.

In the same prophet,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To that end You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

This also refers to that hell of theirs from which they will never rise up again. And in the same prophet,

Your dead will live, my corpse will rise again. Wake up and sing, O inhabitants of the dust. For Your dew is a dew of herbs. But You will cast away the land of the Rephaim. Isaiah 26:19.

'The land of the Rephaim' is that self same hell.

In David,

Will You work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

This similarly refers to that hell of theirs and to the fact that they can never again rise up and contaminate the atmosphere of the world of spirits with the utterly dreadful poison of their persuasions. Provision has been made by the Lord however to prevent the human race ever again being steeped in such dreadful delusions and persuasions. But the people who lived before the Flood were of such a nature and disposition that they were able to be steeped in them, for reasons until now unknown to anybody, which too will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

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