9386. 'And Moses wrote all Jehovah's words' means imprinting them at the same time on the life. This is clear from the meaning of 'writing' as imprinting them on the life, dealt with below; from the representation of 'Moses' as the Lord in respect of the Word, as above in 9372, 9382; and from the meaning of 'all Jehovah's words' as truths from the Word, also dealt with above, in 9383. From this it is evident that 'Moses wrote all Jehovah's words' means God's truths imprinted by the Lord on the life. Truths are said to have been imprinted on the life when they become matters of will and consequently of action. As long as they remain fixed solely in the memory, and as long as they are regarded on solely an intellectual level, they have not been imprinted on the life. But as soon as they are accepted with the will they are made part of the life, because willing and consequent action are the real essence of the life of a person. Till then those truths have not become the person's own.

[2] The reason why 'writing' means imprinting on the life is that written accounts of things exist for the sake of remembrance by every future generation. It is similar with the things that have been imprinted on a person's life. A person has two books so to speak in which all his thoughts and deeds have been written down. These books are his two memories, the exterior one and the interior one. The things written down in his interior memory are those which remain to all eternity and can never be blotted out. They are primarily those things which have been made part of the will, that is, of love since things that are loved are part of the will. This memory is what someone's 'book of life' is used to mean, see 2474.

9320. 'For you shall utterly destroy them' means that evils must be completely removed. This is clear from the meaning of 'destroying' - when it has reference to evils and falsities, meant by the nations of the land of Canaan and their gods - as removing. The reason why 'destroying' means removing is that those governed by goodness and truth never destroy those ruled by evil and falsity, but merely move them away. This they do because good, not evil, governs their actions, and good comes from the Lord, who never destroys anyone. Those ruled by evil however and consequently by falsity try to destroy, and so far as they can they do destroy those governed by good. This they do because evil rules their actions. But since, when they try to do so, they make their attack on good which comes from the Lord, thus on what is of God, they destroy themselves, that is, they hurl themselves into damnation and into hell. Such is the law of order. And why it is such, see 4299, 7643, 7679, 7710, 7926, 7989, 8137, 8146, 8265, 8945, 8946.

[2] The reason why the Israelites and Jews were to destroy the nations of the land of Canaan was that they themselves represented spiritual and heavenly realities, while the nations represented hellish and devilish things, which can never exist together with those realities since they are opposites. The reason why they were allowed to destroy the nations was that no Church existed among them, only a representative of the Church, so that the Lord was not present among them either except through things of a representative nature, 4307. For they were interested in outward forms but not their inner substances, that is, in the worship that represented goodness and truth but not goodness and truth themselves. People like this are allowed to destroy, kill, and consign to slaughter and complete destruction. But people who are interested in outward forms and at the same time in their inner substance are not allowed to do those things, since their actions must be governed by good, and good comes from the Lord.

[3] The fact that the Jews and Israelites were such is declared explicitly by Moses,

Do not say in your heart, when Jehovah your God has thrust out the nations before you, Because of my righteousness Jehovah has brought me in to possess this land. It is not because of your righteousness and because of the uprightness of your heart; for you are a stiff-necked people. Deuteronomy 9:4-6.

And elsewhere,

They are a nation from whom counsel has perished, nor is there intelligence in them. From the vine of Sodom comes their vine, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, they have clusters of bitterness. The poison of snakes (draco) is their wine, and the cruel poison of asps. Is not this hidden away with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? Deuteronomy 32:28, 32-34.

'The vine' in the internal sense means the Church, 1069, 5113, 6375, 6376, 9277; 'grapes' and 'clusters' mean the internal forms and the external forms of that Church's good, 1071, 5117, 6378; and 'wine' means that Church's internal truth, 1071, 1798, 6377. From this one may see what is meant by the assertions that their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah, that their grapes are grapes of poison and clusters of bitterness, and that their wine is the poison of snakes and the cruel poison of asps. The fact that all this was known to Jehovah, that is, to the Lord, is meant by the remarks about its being hidden away with Him and sealed up in His treasuries.

[4] In John,

Jesus said to the Jews, You are from your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth. John 8:44.

This is why they are called a wicked and adulterous generation, Matthew 12:39, as well as a brood of vipers, Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Luke 3:7. That they were like this is also described by the Lord in His parables in Matthew 21:33-45; Mark 12:1-9; Luke 14:16-24; 20:9ff.

Regarding that nation, that it was the worst nation; that in their worship they were interested in outward forms but not their inner substance; that no Church existed among them, only a representative of the Church; but that nevertheless they were able to represent the internal realities of the Church, see 3398, 3479, 3480, 3732 (end), 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288-4290, 4293, 4307, 4314, 4316, 4317, 4429, 4433, 4444, 4500, 4503, 4680, 4815, 4818, 4820, 4825, 4832, 4837, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4868, 4874, 4899, 4903, 4911-4913, 5057, 5998, 6304, 6832, 6877, 7048, 7051, 7248, 7401, 7439, 8301, 8588, 8788, 8806, 8814, 8819, 8871, 8882, 9284.

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.