1659. Inner Meaning

THE contents of this chapter do not look as though they could represent anything. All the chapter talks about is the wars among a number of kings, Abram's rescue of Lot, and finally Melchizedek, so it reads as if it did not have a single heavenly secret buried inside. Still, in the inner meaning, these elements of the story (like all the others) conceal the deepest secrets possible, which follow on in an unbroken chain from those above and lead in an unbroken chain to those below.

[2] The earlier parts spoke of the Lord and his education, and of his outer self, which needed to unite with his inner self by means of knowledge both secular and religious. As noted, though, his outer self harbored obstacles to the union, as a result of his maternal heredity [§§1414, 1444, 1573, 1601-1603]. What interfered had to be thrust out through combat and times of trial before his outer self could become one with his inner, or in other words, before his human quality could become one with his divine. The present chapter therefore discusses those struggles, which the inner sense represents and symbolizes through the wars here described.

Within the church it is known that Melchizedek represented the Lord and as a result that when the subject is Melchizedek the inner sense speaks of the Lord. ¹ A further conclusion, logically, is that not only what is said of Melchizedek but everything else too has a representative meaning. After all, not a syllable could have been written in the Word which did not come down from heaven and in which angels consequently do not see heavenly dimensions.

[3] In the earliest times, too, wars represented many things. The people of those times called them Jehovah's Wars, and the sole purpose of the term was to symbolize the struggles of the church and of the people in the church, ² or in other words, to symbolize the spiritual trials of those people. Spiritual trials are nothing but our battles and wars against the evil in us, so they are fights against the Devil's crew, which stirs up the evil and tries to destroy religion and religious people.

The wars mentioned in the Word have no other meaning, as is obvious from the consideration that the Word cannot treat of anything but the Lord, his kingdom, and the church. This is because it is divine rather than human and accordingly has to do with heaven rather than the world. So the wars of the literal story can mean nothing else in an inner sense. You will be able to see this better below.

Footnotes:

1563. The symbolism of and Lot too, who went with Abram, as the outer self that the Lord had can be seen from the representation of Lot as the sensory self or, what is the same, the outer self.

We each have an inward part and an outward part or, to put it another way, an inner self and an outer self, as everyone in the church knows; ¹ for more, see above at §§978, 994, 995, 1015.

The outer self receives its life chiefly from the inner self, that is, from its spirit, or soul. This is the origin of its actual life force as a general whole. That force cannot be received by the outer self in a detailed or distinct way unless there is an opening of its organic vessels, which are necessary for reception of the specific influences from the inner self, down to the most minute. These organic ² vessels necessary for reception are not opened up except by means of the senses — mainly hearing and sight. When they do open, the inner self can enter in with its specific and minute details. Those vessels are opened by means of the senses through facts and religious knowledge (properties of the intellect), and also through appetites and pleasures (properties of the will).

[2] The plain and inevitable consequence is that the outer self will then be infiltrated by secular and religious concepts incompatible with spiritual truth and by appetites and pleasures incompatible with heavenly goodness. All the ones that focus on personal, worldly, and earthly rewards as their goals fall into this category. When we focus on them as our goals, they drag our outer self out toward the surface and downward. In this way they distance the outer self from the inner. If these distractions are not first dispelled, the inner self cannot possibly come into harmony with the outer self, so before the inner self can come into harmony with the outer self, such things must first be put aside.

The fact that they were put aside or separated in the Lord is represented and symbolized by Lot's separation from Abram.

Footnotes: