1097. Canaan will be slave to him means that the type of individual who identifies worship exclusively with the outward show of it is among those who are able to serve people of the church in lowly ways. This can best be seen from the things that people in the Jewish church represented. 1
In the Jewish church, Judah and Israel represented the inner church. Judah represented a heavenly church; Israel, a spiritual one; Jacob, the outer church. But people who identified worship exclusively with the outward show of it were represented by non-Jews, whom they called foreigners. These were their slaves, who performed menial tasks in that church. In Isaiah, for example:
Strangers will stand and pasture your flock, and the children of a foreigner will be your farmers and your vinedressers. And you will be called Jehovah's priests, attendants of our God; it will be said to you, "The wealth of the gentile nations you will eat, and their glory you will glory in." (Isaiah 61:5-6)
Heavenly kinds of people are called Jehovah's priests; spiritual ones, God's attendants. Those who see worship as consisting only in outward appearances are called children of a foreigner, destined to serve in the fields and vineyards.
[2] In the same author:
The children of a foreigner will rebuild the walls, and their monarchs will tend to you. (Isaiah 60:10)
This verse too mentions their labor as slaves. In Joshua, concerning the Gibeonites:
"A curse on you! And the slave will not be cut off from you, 2 or those chopping wood and drawing water for the House of my God." Joshua on that day made them choppers of wood and drawers of water for the assembly — particularly for Jehovah's altar. (Joshua 9:23, 27)
A pact was made with the Gibeonites, though. What kind of people they therefore represented may be seen elsewhere [§§3058, 4431, 6860], but they were among those who would act as servants in the church.
A law was laid down for foreigners, stating that if they accepted peace and opened their gates they would serve as tribute in the form of slave labor (Deuteronomy 20:11; 1 Kings 9:21-22).
Each and every thing written about the Jewish church in the Word represented the Lord's kingdom — a kingdom that by its very nature requires everyone, of whatever identity or character, to do something useful. Nothing but usefulness is regarded by the Lord in his kingdom. Even people in hell have to be useful, but the uses they fill are very lowly. Some of the people doing menial work in the other world are individuals whose worship had been completely external, disconnected as it was from any inner content.
[3] Furthermore, representative meanings in the Jewish church were such that they imply nothing about the person filling a role but only about the phenomenon that the person represented. Jews, for instance, were anything but heavenly people, and yet that is the kind of people they represented. 3 By the same token, Israel was anything but a spiritual person, and yet that is what he represented; and the same for Jacob and all the others — including the monarchs and priests, who nonetheless represented the Lord's royal power and holiness. The point is illustrated even more clearly by the fact that inanimate objects also filled a representative role. These included Aaron's vestments, the altar itself, the tables holding the loaves, the lamps, and the bread and wine, not to mention adult cattle, young cattle, he-goats, sheep, she-goats, lambs, pigeons, and turtledoves. 4
The children of Judah and Israel merely represented the internal and external worship that takes place in the Lord's church, while more than any other people they considered worship to consist only in outward acts. Consequently they more than any others are the ones who can be called Canaan, in view of his symbolism here.
Footnotes:
1. On the Jewish, or representative church, see note 3 in §994. [Editors]
2. "The slave will not be cut off from you" means that the Gibeonites would remain slaves. [LHC]
3. On Swedenborg's attitude toward Jews, see note 4 in §259, as well as the reader's guide in volume 1, pages 51-55. [Editors]
4. The items listed here were features of worship services and sacrifices in the tabernacle and later in Solomon's temple. Full discussion of much of their symbolism can be found in the passages of Secrets of Heaven interpreting Exodus 25-31 (§§9455-10376). Some of the many relevant passages (sometimes including reference to further passages) are as follows: Aaron's vestments, §§9804-9966; the altar, §§9713-9739; the tables, §§9527-9543; the bread, §10107; the wine, §10137:1-10. On the symbolism of sacrificial animals, see §1361:2 in addition to the exegesis of Exodus 29:10-41 in §§10020-10141. [LHC, RS, SS]
