6391. 'And he will see rest that it is good' means that works of goodness done without thought of recompense are filled with happiness. This is clear from the meaning of 'rest' as the things which are of heaven, thus those who ¹ have the good of charity in them, that is, who perform works of goodness without thought of recompense, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'that it is good' as the fact that they are filled with happiness. The reason 'rest' means works of goodness done without thought of recompense is that 'rest' or peace in the highest sense means the Lord, and in the relative sense heaven and thus good which comes from the Lord, see 3780, 4681, 5662. And since the things meant by 'rest' or peace reside with none but those who have the good of charity in them and so perform works of goodness without thought of recompense, these works are meant by 'rest'; for this meaning is what follows from the train of thought in the internal sense.

[2] The fact of the matter is that people who perform good deeds with no other end in view than recompense cannot possibly know that the performance of good deeds without thought of recompense holds happiness so great that it is the happiness of heaven. The reason why they cannot know is that happiness is seen by them to reside in the delight of self-love; and insofar as a person sees delight within this love he sees no delight within heavenly love, since the two are opposites. The delight which comes out of self-love entirely destroys that which comes out of heavenly love. It destroys it so completely that there is plainly no knowledge of what heavenly delight may be; or if mention is made of what it is like, this is met with unbelief and even rejection.

[3] I have been allowed to know about this from evil spirits in the next life who, when they lived in the world, performed no good deed for others or for their country except for selfish reasons. They do not believe that any delight can exist in the performance of good deeds without recompense as the end in view; for they imagine that without recompense as the end in view all delight ceases to exist. And if they are told nevertheless that when that delight ceases to exist heavenly delight starts to do so, they are dumbfounded on hearing it. And especially when they hear that that heavenly delight flows into a person by way of his inmost being and fills him interiorly with indescribable happiness, they are all the more dumbfounded, saying they cannot take it in. Indeed they say they do not want that delight, for they think that if they lose the delight of self-love their condition is utterly wretched because all the joy of life is in that case missing; and they also call those people naive whose state is different from one of self-love. Not unlike them are those whose works are performed with a view to recompense, for they do good works for their own benefit and not that of others, that is, they regard themselves in those works, not their neighbour, nor their country, nor heaven, nor the Lord, except as those who have a duty to be of benefit to them. These are the kinds of matters that this verse dealing with Issachar describes in the internal sense.

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5662. 'And he said, Peace to you, do not be afraid' means that all is well, they should not despair. This is clear from the meaning of 'peace' as what is well, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'do not be afraid' as they should not despair. The subject in the internal sense is a change of state. No longer were they by their own power acquiring truths; now they were acquiring good by means of truths, which however were truths given them by the Lord. But because they imagined that they would then be losing their selfhood, and so would be losing their freedom and consequently their entire delight in life, they were plunged into despair, as is evident from what has gone before. So it is that here 'do not be afraid' means that they should not despair; for fear arises from various different causes, 5647, and therefore has various different meanings.

[2] The reason 'peace' means all is well is that peace is what is central and consequently what reigns universally within every single thing in heaven. For the peace that reigns in heaven is like spring on earth, or like the dawn. What moves a person's feelings when spring or dawn arrives is not the discernible changes that take place then but the loveliness reigning universally, which pervades every individual thing he perceives and fills not only that perception but also each individual object with loveliness. Scarcely anyone at the present day knows what peace is when it is mentioned in the Word, as, besides other places, in the Blessing,

Jehovah lift up His face upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:26.

Almost everyone believes that peace consists in being kept safe from enemies and in serenity reigning at home and among companions. That kind of peace is not however what is meant here but another kind that is immensely superior, namely heavenly peace, described immediately above. No one can be granted this peace unless he is led by the Lord and abides in the Lord, that is, unless he is in heaven where the Lord is the All in all. For heavenly peace enters in when the desires that spring from self-love and love of the world are removed; for those desires take peace away, molesting a person inwardly and causing him at length to consider rest to consist in unrest and peace in molestations, because he considers delight to consist in evil desires. All the time a person is subject to these desires he cannot by any means know what peace is; indeed during all that time he believes that such peace is of no worth. And should anyone say that one experiences this peace when the delights that spring from self-love and love of the world are removed he laughs at the idea, for the reason that he considers peace to consist in the delight taken in evil, which is the opposite of peace.

[3] Such being the nature of peace, that is to say, it is what is central to every form of happiness and bliss and is therefore what reigns universally within every individual thing, the ancients therefore used the common saying 'Peace to you', meaning May all be well; or else they would ask people 'Did they have peace?' meaning Was all well with them? See what has been stated and shown already regarding peace,

Peace in heaven is like spring and the dawn on earth, 1726, 2780.

In the highest sense 'peace' is the Lord; in the representative sense it is His kingdom, also the Lord's Divine affecting inmostly what is good, 3780, 4681.

All unrest is due to evil and falsity, whereas peace is due to goodness and truth, 3170.