4454. 'And Shechem said to her father and to her brothers' means counsel taken by the truth from the ancient Divine stock with the good and truth of this semblance of religion. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' in this case as taking counsel; from the representation of 'Shechem' as the truth from the ancient Divine stock, dealt with above in 4447; from the meaning of 'father', who in this case is Jacob, as the good of truth, dealt with in 4273, 4337; and from the meaning of 'brothers', who in this case are the sons of Jacob, as truths, dealt with above. It is evident from the references quoted above in 4447 that Shechem means truth from the ancient Divine stock; for Hamor the Hivite together with his nation and family in the land of Canaan were part of the remnants of the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial. This Church, more than all other Churches in the whole world, was in origin Divine, for the good of love to the Lord was present in it. Will and understanding with them made one, and so one mind, and on that account they had from good a perception of truth. For the Lord was flowing in by an internal route into the good present in their will and from this into the good present in their understanding, that is, into their truth, as a consequence of which that Church more than all others was called Man, 477-479, and also the Likeness of God, 51, 473, 1013. From this one may see why Hamor and Shechem are said to be from the ancient Divine stock, as previously in 4399. The fact that the Most Ancient Church, which was called 'Man', or to use the Hebrew word 'Adam', was located in the land of Canaan, as stated above in 4447, is quite evident from their descendants who were called the Nephilim, Genesis 6:4. The presence of the latter in the land of Canaan is referred to in Numbers 13:33; see 581. But at that time the expression 'the land of Canaan' was used to mean all the land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, Genesis 15:18.

581. That 'the Nephilim' means those who, persuaded of their own prominence and superiority, treated everything holy and true as being worthless is clear from what comes before and directly after; that is to say, they immersed matters of doctrine in their own evil desires, which is what is meant by the statement about the sons of God going in to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. Persuasion concerning self and its own delusions also grows as more and more things enter in, till at length that persuasion is inerasable. And when doctrinal matters concerning faith are added as well, utterly persuasive assumptions cause them to treat everything holy and true as being worthless, and they become Nephilim. As has been stated, this set of people who lived before the Flood are such that all spirits are choked to death by their absolutely dreadful delusions which spread from them like a sphere that is poisonous and choking. Spirits are so choked to death by them that they do not know how to think, and as a result feel semi-dead. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had freed the world of spirits from so pernicious a set of people, no one could possibly have stayed on there, and so the human race, which the Lord governs by means of spirits, would have perished. Consequently these people are now detained in a hell beneath what looks like a misty solid rock, beneath the heel of the left foot. Nor do they ever try to escape. The world of spirits is accordingly free of that extremely dangerous crew. That crew and the thoroughly poisonous sphere of persuasions from it will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with as a separate subject. ¹ These are the people called the Nephilim, and they treat all that is holy and true as being worthless.

[2] Further mention is made of them in the Word, though their descendants were called Anakim and Rephaim. The fact that they were called Anakim is clear in Moses,

The men who explored the land of Canaan said, We saw the Nephilim there, the sons of Anak who were descendants of the Nephilim; and in our own eyes we were like locusts, and so we were in their eyes. Numbers 13:33.

The fact that they were called Rephaim is clear once again in Moses,

The Emim lived formerly in the land of Moab, a people great and many, and tall like the Anakim. The Rephaim were also considered to be as Anakim; and the Moabites called them Emim. Deuteronomy 2:10-11.

The Nephilim are not mentioned again, but the Rephaim are. In the Prophets the description of them fits what has been said about them already, as in Isaiah,

Hell beneath has been stirred up for you, to meet you as you come. He has roused the Rephaim for you. Isaiah 14:9

This refers to the hell where such people are.

In the same prophet,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To that end You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

This also refers to that hell of theirs from which they will never rise up again. And in the same prophet,

Your dead will live, my corpse will rise again. Wake up and sing, O inhabitants of the dust. For Your dew is a dew of herbs. But You will cast away the land of the Rephaim. Isaiah 26:19.

'The land of the Rephaim' is that self same hell.

In David,

Will You work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

This similarly refers to that hell of theirs and to the fact that they can never again rise up and contaminate the atmosphere of the world of spirits with the utterly dreadful poison of their persuasions. Provision has been made by the Lord however to prevent the human race ever again being steeped in such dreadful delusions and persuasions. But the people who lived before the Flood were of such a nature and disposition that they were able to be steeped in them, for reasons until now unknown to anybody, which too will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

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