Joshua 12: The kings who were defeated by Joshua.

This chapter lists the kings who were defeated by Moses on the other side of the river Jordan, and those defeated by Joshua in the land of Canaan. Moses defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Joshua defeated 31 kings, and this chapter names their cities one by one.

We might well wonder: what is the use of such a chapter for us? But here it is, included in the Word of God. We will suggest two ways in which this chapter gives us a spiritual message to work with:

First, the sheer number of kings who opposed Israel represent, in a general way, the many things that prevent us from dedicating ourselves to the Lord’s teachings.

Secondly, the many names of the towns that the Israelites defeated are all significant in identifying the various situations we encounter in our spiritual lives (See Swedenborg’s Arcana Caelestia 2009[9]). For example “Joshua” means ‘God is victory’, something we can come to understand as we choose to turn against evil. We can do that because the Lord fights for and with us; we cannot do that alone.

For every heaven there is a corresponding hell (See Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell 588). If mercy is something of heaven, hell is to do with cruelty and all that goes with it. If innocence is of heaven, hell is to do with intended harm and all that goes with that. Evil is unspeakably precise.

Joshua defeated thirty-one kings. The number thirty stands for combat and also for ‘remnants’, which are deep-seated feelings of good and truth given the Lord gives us during our childhood, to help us combat evil in adult regeneration. Thirty-one would seem to suggest combat going on even past thirty (Arcana Caelestia 5335).

The names of the cities of these kings are given, and each name represents a quality. ‘Israel’ was the name given to Jacob by the Lord, after he had wrestled all night with the angel of God and had prevailed (see Genesis 32:24-28). “Israel” means ‘striving with God’ and also ‘a prince with God’, and it became the name of the people of Israel.

As examples, we will look at three Canaanite cities which fought Israel, and explore the spiritual meaning of their names.

1. The king of Jarmuth, means ‘being downcast by death’. Viewing life only in terms of its inevitable end does terrible things to our sense of purpose, hope and trust. Defeating Jarmuth helps us see that death is a transition into eternal life, and our means of passing from this life into our fullest life.

2. The king of Aphek, means ‘tenacious fortress’. We can quite readily see that evil can be exactly like a tenacious fortress. Evil will hang on like grim death and refuse to let us go. Evil will attempt any number of devious tactics to break us down or undermine our faith. The last thing it will do is to see that we’re resolved, and then finally give up.

3. The king of Taanach, which means ‘sandy, hard to cross’. This might remind us of dangerous quicksands, or the way in which we stumble trying to walk through sand. Again, sometimes evil can appear to give us safer passage on solid ground, before we realize that it is the hells ensnaring us.

932. There is no need to confirm from the Word that 'seedtime and harvest' means the person who is to be regenerated, and consequently the Church, because the comparison and likening of the individual to a field and so to 'seedtime' and of the Lord's Word to 'seed', and of what it accomplishes to 'produce' or 'harvest', occurs so frequently. This anybody can also gather from these same expressions which are part of his everyday vocabulary. In general the reference is to all men, and the fact that not one ever fails to have seed from the Lord sown within him, no matter whether he is inside the Church or outside of it, that is, whether he knows the Lord's Word or whether he does not.

[2] Without this implanting of seed from the Lord nobody can do the least good thing. Every good that stems from charity, even among gentiles, is seed obtained from the Lord. Although with gentiles it is not the good of faith as it may be inside the Church, it can nevertheless develop into the good of faith. In fact gentiles who have led charitable lives, as they are accustomed to do in the world, on being instructed by angels in the next life embrace and accept teaching about true faith and embrace and accept faith that accompanies charity, far more easily than Christians. These matters will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on. In particular however the subject here is the person who is to be regenerated, that is to say, the Church will not fail to emerge somewhere on earth. This is the meaning here of 'during all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest'. The statement that seedtime and harvest, which are the Church, will always be emergent somewhere on earth has regard to the content of the previous verse, that is to say, man will no longer be able to destroy himself in the way that the final descendants of the Most Ancient Church did.