1444. The symbolism of and the Canaanite was then in the land as the evil in his outer self that he inherited from his mother can be seen from statements already made about the Lord's heredity [§1414]. He was born like the rest of us and carried with him different kinds of evil that he had received from his mother, which he fought against and completely overcame. As people generally realize, the Lord underwent and endured heavy spiritual trials. (With the Lord's divine mercy, these will be discussed later [§§1573:4, 1659:2, 1661, 1663, 1668, 1690, 1692, 1787, 1812-1813, 1820:5].) In fact he fought alone, with his own might, against all of hell; that is how severe his trials were.

No one can undergo spiritual crisis unless something bad clings to the person. No one devoid of evil can suffer the least tribulation. Evil is what hellish spirits stir up.

[2] The Lord had no actual evil, no evil of his own, as all the rest of us do. What he had was evil inherited from his mother, which in the present verse is called the Canaanite then in the land. For more on this, see the remarks above at verse 1, §1414. To review, we are born with two heredities, one from our father and the other from our mother. Our heredity from our father lasts forever; that from our mother is dissolved by the Lord when we are being reborn. The Lord's heredity from his father, though, was divine, while his heredity from his mother was evil. The latter is the subject of the current verse and is what enabled him to be put to the test. (For mention of his trials, see Mark 1:12-13; Matthew 4:1; Luke 4:1-2.) But again, he had no actual evil, no evil of his own. Nor did any of his mother's evil heredity remain after he had overthrown hell through his trials, which is why it says here that it was then, that is, that the Canaanite was then in the land.

[3] The Canaanites were people who lived along the sea ¹ and the shores of the Jordan, as is evident in Moses:

When the scouts returned, they said, "We came into the land to which you sent us, and in fact it was flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. But a strong people is living in the land, and the cities are fortified and very big, and we saw the offspring of Anak there. Amalek lives in the south; and the Hittite and the Jebusite and the Amorite live on the mountain, and the Canaanite lives along the sea and along the shores of the Jordan." (Numbers 13:27, 28, 29)

The fact that the Canaanites lived along the sea and the shores of the Jordan consequently symbolized evil in a person's outer self — the kind of evil we inherit from our mother — since the sea and the Jordan were outer borders.

[4] Zechariah also yields evidence that a Canaanite symbolizes this kind of evil:

No longer will there be a Canaanite in the house of Jehovah Sabaoth on that day. (Zechariah 14:21)

This refers to the Lord's kingdom and symbolizes the fact that the Lord has completely conquered the evil meant by a Canaanite and banished it from his kingdom.

All types of evil are symbolized by the idolatrous nations in the land of Canaan, including the Canaanites proper, in such places as Genesis 15:19-20, 21; Exodus 3:8, 17; 23:23, 28; 33:2; 34:11; Deuteronomy 7:1; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 24:11; Judges 3:5. What particular evil each nation symbolizes will be told elsewhere, by the Lord's divine mercy. ²

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