8934. Verses 24-26 An altar of soil ¹ you shall make for Me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your eucharistic offerings, your flocks and your herds; in every place where I shall put the memory of My name I will come to you and bless you. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, you shall not build it with hewn ones; for if you move your chisel over it you will profane it. And you shall not go up to My altar by steps, in order that your nakedness may not be revealed on it.

'An altar of soil you shall make for Me' means something which in a general way represents worship that springs from good. 'And shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your eucharistic offerings' means worship in particular according to each person's state of spiritual life. 'Your flocks and your herds' means forms of good, internal and external. 'In every place where I shall put the memory of My name' means the state of faith in the Lord with each individual person. 'I will come to you and bless you' means God's presence at that time, and influx. 'And if you make for Me an altar of stones' means a representative kind of worship in general that is composed of truths. 'You shall not build it with hewn ones' means that it must not be a product of self-intelligence. 'For if you move your chisel over it' means if a product of the proprium or self. 'You will profane it' means that no worship in that case exists. 'And you shall not go up to My altar by steps' means not raising themselves to more internal levels, that is, celestial ones. 'In order that your nakedness may not be revealed on it' means the mental picture of those things, which in that event is full of falsities, will then be disclosed.

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4489. 'Will these not be ours?' means that these two kinds of goods and truths would be alike and take the same form. This becomes clear from the train of thought, the essence of which is that the goods and truths of the Most Ancient Church, which in some measure still remained in existence among Hamor and Shechem and their families, would accord with the goods and truths which came from the Ancient Church and existed among the descendants of Jacob. For the observances which were established among the descendants of Jacob were nothing other than external things which represented and meant the internal things of the Most Ancient Church. 'Will these not be ours?' - or, Would they not belong to them? - means that they would be alike and take the same form.

[2] But let an example illustrate this matter. The altar on which they used to offer sacrifice was the chief representative of the Lord, 921, 2777, 2811. The altar was also for that reason fundamental to the worship in the Ancient Church that was called the Hebrew Church, and therefore every single thing that went into the construction of the altar was representative, such as its dimensions - its height, breadth, and length - its stones, its network of bronze, its horns; and so was the fire which was kept burning on it perpetually; and above all the sacrifices and burnt offerings. What they represented were the truths and goods which are the Lord's and which come from the Lord. These were the internal things of worship which, because they were represented in that external object, were alike and took the same form as the truths and goods of the Most Ancient Church. Its dimensions - its height, breadth, and length - meant in general the good, the truth, and the holiness from these, see 650, 1613, 3433, 3434, 4482. 'Its stones' meant in particular those truths that are more basic, 1298, 3720. 'The bronze' from which the network around the altar was made meant natural good, 425, 1551. 'The horns' meant the power of truth that springs from good, 2832. 'The fire' on the altar meant love, 934. 'The sacrifices and burnt offerings' meant celestial and spiritual things, according to their various kinds, 922, 1823, 2180, 2805, 2807, 2830, 3519. From all this it becomes clear that internal things were to be contained within external ones, and that internally the two sets of goods and truths would be alike. The same applies to all other external aspects of worship.

[3] But those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church had no interest in those external things because they were internal people, and the Lord flowed in by an internal way existing with them and taught them what was good. To them the variations and differences of good were truths, and from this they knew what every single thing in the world represented in the Lord's kingdom; for the whole world or whole natural order is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, 2758, 3483. Those however who belonged to the Ancient Church were not internal people but external, as a consequence of which the Lord was not able with them to flow in by an internal way and teach them what was good, only by an external way. At first He flowed in and taught them by means of such things as were representatives and meaningful signs, from which the representative Church arose, and later on by means of matters of doctrine concerning good and truth which were so represented and meant, from which the Christian Church arose. In essence the Christian Church is identical so far as its internal form is concerned with the representative Church, but the representatives and meaningful signs of the latter were done away with after the Lord came into the world, for the reason that every single thing represented Him Himself and as a consequence the things of His kingdom, for these are derived from Him and are so to speak the Lord Himself.

[4] But the difference between the Most Ancient Church and the Christian Church is as great as that between the bright light of the sun by day and the inferior light of the moon or stars by night. For seeing goods by the internal or earlier way is like seeing in the daytime by the bright light of the sun, whereas seeing by the external or later way is like seeing in the night by the inferior light of the moon or stars. The difference was almost the same between the Most Ancient Church and the Ancient, except that those who belonged to the Christian Church could have dwelt in fuller light if they had acknowledged internal things, that is, if they had believed and practiced the truths and goods which the Lord taught. The actual good is the same in both, but the difference between them is that one sees that good in brightness, the other in obscurity. Those who see in brightness see countless arcana almost as angels in heaven do and also feel an affection for those which they see, whereas those who see in obscurity see scarcely anything that is free from doubt, and the things they do see mingle themselves with the shades of night, that is, with falsities. Nor can they inwardly feel any affection for them. Now because the good is the same in both, so also as a consequence is the truth; and this is why the words 'will these not be ours?' mean that the two sets of goods and truths would be alike and take the same form. For as stated already, Hamor and Shechem were part of the remnants of the Most Ancient Church, while the descendants of Jacob belonged to the Ancient Church called the Hebrew Church, though they were interested only in the external things of that Church. But the fact that Hamor and Shechem his son committed an enormous sin by accepting circumcision will be seen below in 4493.