9335. 'And the wild animal of the field multiplies against you' means an inrush of falsities arising from the delights of self-love and love of the world. This is clear from the meaning of 'multiplying', when it has reference to a hurried removal of evils and falsities, as an inrush; and from the meaning of 'the wild animal of the field' as falsities arising from the delights of self-love and love of the world. For affections, good and bad, are meant in the Word by different kinds of beasts, 9280, and therefore affections for falsity that arise from the delights of self-love and love of the world are meant by 'wild animals'. These affections are also represented in the next life by wild animals, such as panthers, tigers, boars, wolves, or bears. Such affections furthermore resemble wild animals, for people ruled by those loves are steeped in evils of every kind and in the falsities arising from them. They are like wild animals in the way they see and treat companions. The fact that those loves are the source of all evils and falsities, see 2041, 2045, 2057, 2363, 2364, 2444, 4750, 4776, 6667, 7178, 7255, 7364, 7366-7377, 7488, 7490-7494, 7643, 8318, 8487, 8678.

[2] The reason why a hurried removal of evils and falsities leads to an inrush of falsities arising from those loves is that forms of good and truths, implanted in successive stages, must remove them; for falsities are not removed except by truths, nor evils except by forms of good. If this removal is not done in successive stages and in keeping with proper order, falsities that lend support to those selfish loves enter in, since those loves reign with every person before he has been regenerated; and when the falsities enter in truths cease to be acknowledged any longer. Also a person who is being regenerated is maintained in an affection for truth; and when maintained in this he searches for truths in all directions among factual knowledge in the natural. But at this time illusions of the outward senses, which exist in great abundance in the natural, present themselves there. From those illusions, when the delights of self-love and love of the world hold sway, the person deduces nothing except falsities, which come in and fill his mind if falsities arising from evil are removed suddenly. These are the considerations that are meant in the internal sense by I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest perhaps the land becomes desolate and the wild animal of the field multiplies against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land.

[3] The fact that 'wild animal' means falsity and evil arising from self-love and love of the world is evident from places in the Word which mention it, as in Isaiah,

There will be a path there and a way, which will be called the way of holiness. The unclean will not pass through it; the savage of the wild animals will not go up it. Isaiah 35:8-9.

In Ezekiel,

I will send famine and evil wild animals upon you, that they may make you bereft. Ezekiel 5:17.

In the same prophet,

When I cause evil wild animals to pass through the land and they leave it bereft so that ¹ it becomes a desolation, with the result that no one passes through on account of the wild animals ... Ezekiel 14:15.

In the same prophet,

You will fall on the open field; ² to the wild animals of the earth, and to the birds of the air I will give you for food. Ezekiel 29:5.

In the same prophet,

At that time I will make with them a covenant of peace, and I will banish ³ the evil wild animal from the land, in order that they may dwell securely in the wilderness. They will no longer be a prey for the nations, and the wild animals of the field will no longer devour them. Ezekiel 34:25, 28.

[4] In Hosea,

I will lay waste her vine and her fig tree; and I will make them into a forest, and the wild animals of the field will eat them. Hosea 2:12.

In the same prophet,

The land will mourn and every inhabitant will waste away because of the wild animals of the field and the birds of the air. Hosea 4:3.

In David,

The boar of the forest tramples on it, and the wild animal of the fields feeds on it. Return, O God Zebaoth, and visit Your vine. Psalms 80:13-14.

In the same author,

You dispose the darkness to become night, in which every wild animal of the forest comes forth. Psalms 104:20.

In Moses,

If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, I will banish ³ the evil wild animals from the land. But if you despise My statutes, I will send into you the wild animals of the field, which will lay you waste. Leviticus 26:3, 6, 15, 22.

In the same author,

Jehovah your God will cast out the nations before you little by little, lest perhaps the wild animals of the field multiply against you. Deuteronomy 7:22.

In these places 'the wild animals of the field', 'the wild animals of the earth', and 'the wild animals of the forest' stand for the falsities and evils that belong to self-love and love of the world.

[5] Since 'wild animal' means falsity, and falsity can spring from two different origins, that is to say, it may stem from evil or it may stem from good, 9258, 'wild animal' in the Word also means upright nations or gentiles who, though they are subject to falsity, nevertheless lead upright lives. The term 'wild animal' is used in this sense in David,

Every wild animal of the forest is Mine, and beasts on mountains of thousands; I know every bird of the mountains, and the wild animal of My fields is with Me. Psalms 50:10-11.

In the same author,

Praise Jehovah, wild animals and all beasts! Psalms 148:7, 10.

In Isaiah,

All wild animals of My fields - come to eat, all wild animals in the forest. Isaiah 56:9.

In Ezekiel,

In the branches of the cedar, which was Asshur, all the birds of the air made their nests, and under its branches every wild animal of the field brought forth, and in its shadow dwelt all great nations. Ezekiel 31:6.

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4570. 'But indeed Israel will be your name' means the nature of the internal natural, or the nature of the spiritual aspect of it, represented by 'Israel'; 'and He called his name Israel' means the internal Natural or the celestial-spiritual aspect of the Natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'name' as the essential nature, dealt with just above in 4568, and from the meaning of 'Israel' as the internal aspect of the Lord's natural and also the celestial-spiritual aspect of the Natural. No one can know why Jacob was called Israel unless he knows what the internal natural is and what the external natural is, and in addition what the celestial-spiritual aspect of the natural is. These matters have in actual fact been explained already, when Jacob was named Israel by the angel; but because they are the kind of things about which people know little, if anything, they need to be explained again.

[2] Two quite distinct and separate degrees exist in man - the rational and the natural. The rational constitutes the internal man and the natural the external; but the natural, like the rational also, has an external aspect of its own and an internal one. The external aspect of the natural is composed of the physical senses and of the impressions received from the world through these senses immediately. By means of his sensory impressions a person is in touch with things belonging to the world and to the body; and people who are confined solely to this natural are called sensory-minded because their thought goes scarcely at all beyond sensory experience. But the internal part of the natural is made up of ideas inferred - by the use of analysis and analogies - from what is in the external, even though it draws on and derives its ideas from sensory impressions. So the natural is in touch through the senses with things belonging to the world and to the body, and through ideas, arrived at by the use of analogy and analysis, with the rational, thus with things belonging to the spiritual world. Such is the composition of the natural. There is another part that exists between and has links with both of them - with the external aspect and with the internal - and so is in touch through the external with things in the natural world, and through the internal with those in the spiritual world. This external natural is represented specifically by 'Jacob', and the internal natural by 'Israel'. The situation is similar with the rational; that is to say, there is an external aspect and an internal, and a further one between the two. But this, in the Lord's Divine mercy, is to be discussed where Joseph is the subject, for 'Joseph' represents the external aspect of the rational.

[3] What the celestial-spiritual is however has been stated several times already - that essentially the celestial is good and the spiritual truth, so that the celestial-spiritual is that which is good resulting from truth. Now because the Lord's Church is both external and internal, and internal features of the Church had to be represented by the descendants of Jacob through things of an external nature, Jacob could not therefore be called Jacob any longer, but was called Israel - see what has been introduced already about these matters in 4286, 4292. Further to this it should be recognized that the terms celestial and spiritual are used both of the rational and of the natural. Celestial is used when people receive good, and spiritual when they receive truth from the Lord; for the good which flows from the Lord into heaven is called celestial, and the truth is called spiritual. In the highest sense the naming of Jacob as Israel means that the Lord progressed towards more interior aspects and made the Natural within Him Divine, both the external aspect of it and the internal. For in the highest sense that which is represented is the Natural itself.