3957. 'And she called his name Issachar' means the essential nature of it. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, as above in 3923, 3935. For he was given the name Issachar from the word 'reward', a name which therefore embodies the things stated above concerning 'reward', and at the same time the things meant by the rest of the words uttered by Leah. Since 'Issachar' means reward, and 'reward' in the external sense is mutual love and in the internal sense the joining together of good and truth, let it be said that very few nowadays in the Christian world know that 'reward' has such a meaning. And the reason why they do not know is that they do not know what mutual love is, still less that good has to be joined to truth if the heavenly marriage is to exist in a person. I have been allowed in the next life to talk about this to very many who were from the Christian world, including the more learned. But what is surprising, scarcely any one of those I talked to knew anything about it, even though they could have come to know much about those matters for themselves if only they had been willing to use their reason. But because they were not concerned about life after death, only about life in the world, they were not interested in such matters. The things they could have known for themselves if only, as has been stated, they had been willing to use their reason were the following:

[2] a When a person is stripped of the body he has a far more enlightened power of understanding than when he is living in the body, the reason being that when he is in the body worldly and bodily interests occupy his thoughts and bring obscurity there. But once he has been stripped of the body those worldly and bodily interests do not get in the way, but through the removal of his mind from sensory experiences of external things he is like those whose thought is more interior. From this consideration they could have known that in the state after death a person is far more clear-sighted and enlightened than in the state before death, and that when a person dies he passes from shade into that which, in comparison with it, is light, because he passes from the things which belong to the world to those which belong to heaven, and from those which belong to the body to those which belong to the spirit. But what is amazing, although people have the ability to understand these things they still think the contrary. That is to say, they think it is in the state of life within the body that a person enjoys clear-sightedness, as compared with the state of life after being stripped of the body, which to them is a state of obscurity.

[3] b They are able to know, if only they use their reason, that the life which a person acquires to himself in the world follows him when he dies, that is, his life is the same after death. For they are able to know that nobody can cast aside the life he has acquired to himself since earliest childhood except by death itself, and that that life cannot be transformed in a moment into any other life, let alone into a contrary life. For example: Someone who has acquired to himself a life of deceit and finds the delight of his life in that deceit cannot cast aside the life of deceit but goes on with that life after death. Or to take another example, people who are governed by self-love and consequently by forms of hatred and revenge against those who are not subservient, or by other similar traits, continue to be governed by these after the life of the body, for they are the things which they love and which constitute the delights of their life and so their very life itself. Such traits cannot therefore be taken away from them unless everything making up their life is wiped out at the same time. And the same applies to all other kinds of life that people have acquired.

[4] c A person is able to know for himself that when he passes into the next life he leaves many things behind him. He knows - since they have no place there - that he leaves behind, for example, anxious cares over food, clothing, accommodation, and the acquisition of money and wealth, as well as anxious cares about his promotion to positions of importance - matters to which a person gives so much thought during the life of the body. Indeed he knows that other things which do not belong to the earthly kingdom take the place of these.

[5] d From this he is able to know that anyone who in the world has thought about nothing else than worldly things such as these, so much so that they have taken a complete hold on him, and who has acquired a delight of life in those things alone, is not suited to be among those who delight to think of heavenly matters, that is, of things of heaven.

[6] e From this in turn he is able to know that if the external things of the body and of the world are taken away from those people, the individual is in that case such as he has been inwardly, that is to say, he thinks and wills as he did previously. If the thoughts within had at that time been deceits, schemings, aspirations after positions of importance, gain, and reputation on account of these; if hatred and revenge and similar passions have been present within, he goes on thinking such things, and so thinking the things of hell, though to achieve those ends he has concealed his thoughts from other people and to outward appearance has seemed honourable and produced in others the conviction that he was not turning such thoughts over in his mind. Knowledge that such outward appearance or presence at being honourable is removed in the next life may also be had from the fact that outward things are cast aside along with the body and have no further use. From this anyone can decide for himself that a person's real character will then be visible to the angels.

[7] f A person is also able to know that heaven, or the Lord by means of heaven, is constantly at work, flowing in with good and truth. But if there is not within a person's interior man that lives after death of the body some solid surface or some plane so to speak to receive good and truth, these cannot be received at all when they flow in. Therefore while a person is living in the world he ought to be anxious to obtain such an interior plane within himself. But he cannot obtain this unless he thinks of good towards his neighbour, desires for him that which is good, and consequently does this for him, and so acquires to himself the delight of life in such actions. This plane is acquired by means of charity towards the neighbour, that is, by mutual love; and it is what is called conscience. Into this plane good and truth from the Lord are able to flow in and be received there. But where charity does not exist, and so conscience does not exist, good and truth flowing in pass through and are converted into evil and falsity.

[8] g A person is able to know for himself that love to God and love towards the neighbour are what make a person a human being, different from animals, and that those things constitute heavenly life or heaven itself and their opposites hellish life or hell itself. But these things are not known by a person because, for one thing, he has no wish to know them since he is leading a life to the contrary; for another, he does not believe in the existence of life after death; and for yet another, ideas about faith but none about charity have taken hold of him, and therefore he believes, as many teach, that if there is a life after death he can be saved by faith, no matter what kind of life he has led, and that he can be saved if faith is received by him only in his last hour when he is dying.

3024.'That you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites' means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'taking a woman' as being joined by means of the marriage covenant; from the meaning of 'my son', namely Isaac, as the Lord's Divine Rational, dealt with in 1893, 2066, 2083, 2630; from the meaning of 'daughters' as affections, dealt with in 489-491, 568, 2362; and from the meaning of 'the Canaanites' as evil, dealt with in 1444, 1573, 1574. Consequently 'the daughters of the Canaanites' are affections incompatible with truth. The subject here is Divine truth which was to be allied to the Divine good of the Lord's Rational, as may be seen in 3013 under 'Contents'. 'A woman' who was to be associated by means of a marriage covenant is used to mean that truth itself which is summoned from the natural man in the normal manner. 'My son' is used to mean the Lord's Rational as regards the good with which it was to be allied or associated. From this one may recognize that the command not to take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites means that the Divine Rational should not be joined to any affection incompatible with truth. All joining of truth to good is effected by means of affection, for no truth ever enters the rational part of a person's mind or is joined to it except by means of affection, for affection has within it the good that flows from love, which good alone effects the joining together, 1895, as also anyone may know who stops to reflect on it.

[2] As regards 'the daughters of the Canaanites' meaning affections incompatible with truth, that is, affections for what is false, this becomes clear from the meaning of 'daughters'. For the noun 'daughters' occurs in many places in the Word, and in these anyone may see that it is not used to mean daughters. By such expressions as 'the daughter of Zion', 'the daughter of Jerusalem', 'the daughter of Tarshish', 'the daughter of My people', affections for good and truth are meant, as shown in the paragraphs referred to above. And since affections for good and truth are meant so also are Churches, for Churches are Churches by virtue of these affections. Consequently 'the daughter of Zion' means the celestial Church, and means this by virtue of the affection for good, whereas 'the daughter of Jerusalem' means the spiritual Church from the affection for truth, 2362. And it is the same with 'the daughter of My people' in Isaiah 22:4; Jeremiah 6:14, 26; 8:19, 21-22; 9:1; 14:17; Lamentations 2:11; 4:6; Ezekiel 13:17.

[3] This shows what is meant by the daughters of the nations, such as by the daughters of the Philistines, the daughters of Egypt, the daughters of Tyre and Sidon, the daughters of Edom, the daughters of Moab, the daughters of the Chaldeans and Babel, and the daughters of Sodom. They mean affections for evil and falsity, from which their varieties of religion sprang, and so mean those varieties themselves. That this is the meaning of 'daughters' becomes clear from the following places: In Ezekiel,

The daughters of the nations will lament over Egypt. Wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send her down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the lower earth, together with those who go down to the pit. Ezekiel 32:16, 18.

'The daughters of majestic nations' stands for affections for evil. In Samuel,

Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. 2 Samuel 1:20.

In Ezekiel,

You committed whoredom with the sons of Egypt. I delivered you to those who hated you, the daughters of the Philistines. Before your badness was revealed, as at the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all round about her, the daughters of the Philistines who despise you from round about. Ezekiel 16:26-27, 57.

Anyone may see that not daughters were meant here but the varieties of religion among such people as are meant by the Philistines - those who speak repeatedly of faith yet do not at all pursue the life taught by faith, see 1197, 1198. This also explains why they are called 'the uncircumcised', that is, devoid of charity.

[4] In Jeremiah,

Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! Make for yourself vessels of migration, O inhabitant daughter of Egypt. The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame; she has been delivered into the hand of the people from the north. Jeremiah 46:11, 19, 24.

'The daughter of Egypt' stands for the affection for reasoning from facts about whether truths of faith really are true, and so stands for the variety of religion which springs from this, the nature of which is to believe nothing except that grasped by the senses, and so to believe nothing of the truth of faith, see 215, 232, 233, 1164, 1165, 1186, 1385, 2196, 2203, 2209, 2568, 2588. In Isaiah,

He said, You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Isaiah 23:12.

In David,

The daughter of Tyre with an offering, the rich of the people will entreat your face. Psalms 45:12.

What 'the daughter of Sidon' and 'the daughter of Tyre' mean is evident from the meaning of Sidon and Tyre, dealt with in 1201. In Jeremiah,

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom. Your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is at an end. He will no more cause you to migrate; your iniquity will be punished, O daughter of Edom. Lamentations 4:21-22.

In Isaiah,

Like a wandering bird, a scattered nest, will the daughters of Moab be. Isaiah 16:2.

In the same prophet,

Come down and sit on the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit quietly and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for no more will they call you the mistress of kingdoms. Isaiah 47:1, 5.

In Jeremiah,

A people coming from the north, arrayed as a man for war against you, O daughter of Babel. Jeremiah 50:41-42.

In the same prophet,

The daughter of Babel is like the threshing-floor; it is time to thresh her. Jeremiah 51:33

In Zechariah,

Ho, Zion! escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babel. Zechariah 2:7.

In David,

The daughter of Babel has been laid waste. Psalms 137:8.

In Ezekiel,

Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters will return to their condition as of old, and Samaria and her daughters will return to their condition as of old. Ezekiel 16:55.

[5] Anyone may see that in these places 'daughters' is not used to mean daughters but affections incompatible with truth, and so the varieties of religion that spring from them. But which particular varieties they are is evident from the meaning of those peoples - from the meaning of Edom, Moab, the Chaldeans, Babel, Sodom, Samaria, all of which have been dealt with in various places in the explanations to previous chapters of Genesis. From this what is meant in the present chapter by 'the daughters of the Canaanites' becomes clear.

[6] This command not to contract marriages with the daughters of the Canaanites also had regard to the spiritual requirements that good should not be joined to falsity, nor evil to truth, for the result of any such joining together is profanation. The prohibition was also a representative of the matter referred to in Deuteronomy 7:3, and in Malachi,

Judah has profaned the holiness of Jehovah, in that he loved and married the daughter of a foreign god. Malachi 2:11.