Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1205

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1205. That 'the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites' were just so many nations, who also mean just so many different forms of idolatry, and that those nations mean forms of idolatry, is clear from many places in the Word, for they were inhabitants of the land of Canaan who on account of their idolatry were rejected and partially destroyed. In the internal sense of the Word however it is not those nations that are meant but the forms of idolatry themselves - in general as they exist anywhere at all, and in particular among the Jews. For people who make worship consist solely in externals and have no wish at all to learn of internals, and who when instructed reject them, incline very much to all these forms of idolatry, as is all too clear in the case of the Jews. internal worship alone holds within it the bonds that keep a person back from idolatry, and once those bonds cease to exist there is nothing to hold him back. There are however not only external forms of idolatry but also interior. Into external forms of idolatry rush those people who possess external worship devoid of internal, and into interior forms those people rush possessing external worship whose interiors are foul. These forms of idolatry are likewise meant by these nations. Interior forms of idolatry are just so many falsities and evil desires which they love and adore and which thus take the place of the gods and idols which existed among gentile nations. It would take too long to explain here however which particular falsities and evil desires they are that people adore and which are meant by these nations - by the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. In the Lord's Divine mercy this will be discussed in the places where these names occur.


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