8858. A person's whole character is determined by the nature of whatever dominates his life; this is what marks him off from others. His heaven is formed in accordance with it if he is good, or his hell if he is bad. For it constitutes his true will and so the true being of his life, which is unchangeable after death. From all this one may see what the life is like in a person who has been regenerated, and what it is like in one who has not been regenerated.

9287. 'You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread' means worship and thanksgiving on account of purification from falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'the feast' as worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from damnation, dealt with immediately above in 9286; and from the meaning of 'unleavened bread' as purification from falsities, for 'yeast' means falsity, 7906, 8051, so that what has been made without yeast or is 'unleavened' means good purified from falsities, 2342, 8058. Regarding this feast, which was also called the Passover, see below in 9292, 9294.

4831. 'And her name was Tamar' means the essential nature of the Church - a Church representative of spiritual and celestial things. This is clear from the meaning of 'name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 2724, 3006, 3421, in this case the essential nature of the Church because Tamar in this chapter represents the Church, in particular the Church representative of spiritual and celestial things which was to be established among the descendants of Judah. Tamar's representation of that Church is evident from what follows. This whole chapter deals in the internal sense with the Jewish Church, with how it was intended to become a Church representative of the spiritual and celestial things of the Lord's kingdom, as the Ancient Church had been, and to become such not only in external form but also in internal. For a Church is not a Church by virtue of its externals, that is, of its religious observances, but by virtue of its internals; for these are the essential realities, the externals merely forms expressing those realities. But the descendants of Jacob were the kind of people who had no wish to receive internal things. Among them therefore the Ancient Church could not be raised up, only that which was a representative of that Church, 4307, 4444, 4500. The internal dimension of the Church is meant here by 'Tamar', and the external by 'Judah' together with his three sons by his Canaanite wife.