Week 1    Day 6

    Listen:

The Inheritance of the Half Tribe of Manasseh

Joshua 13:29-32

29 And Moses gave an inheritance to the half tribe of Manasseh; and it was for the half tribe of the sons of Manasseh according to their families.

30 And their border was from Mahanaim, all of Bashan, all the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, and all the hamlets of Jair which are in Bashan, sixty cities;

31 and half Gilead, and Ashtaroth and Edrei, cities from the kingdom of Og in Bashan; for the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh, for half of the sons of Machir for their families.

32 These are what Moses, in the deserts of Moab, across the Jordan near Jericho toward the sunrise, gave for an inheritance.

The Inheritance of the Half Tribe of Manasseh in General

AE 440:7. Because all the good that the natural man has flows in from the Lord through the spiritual, and without that influx there can be no good in the natural, and because “Manasseh” represented and thus signified good in the natural man from a spiritual origin, therefore to that tribe an inheritance was given both beyond or outside of Jordan and on this side or within Jordan, that is, to half the tribe beyond or outside of Jordan, and to the other half on this side or within Jordan (see Num. 32:33, 39, 40; Deut. 3:13; Josh. 13:29-31; 17:5-13, 16-18). The land beyond or outside of Jordan represented and signified the external church, which is with men in the natural man; but the land on this side or within Jordan represented and signified the internal church, which is with men in the spiritual man... It is good that constitutes the church, and this good flows in immediately out of the spiritual man into the natural, and without this influx the church is not with man; and this is the reason that to the tribe of Manasseh, by which the good of the church was signified, was given an inheritance both inside and outside the Jordan.

Bashan

AE 405:13.

A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; a mountain of hills is the mountain of Bashan; why leap ye, ye mountains, ye hills of the mountain? God desires to dwell in it; yea, Jehovah will inhabit it perpetually (Ps. 68:15-16).

“The mountain of Bashan” signifies voluntary good of the kind that exists in those who are in the externals of the church. For Bashan was a region beyond Jordan, which was given as an inheritance to the half tribe of Manasseh, as may be seen in Joshua (13:29-32); and “Manasseh” signifies the voluntary good of the external or natural man. This voluntary good is the same as the good of love in the external man, for all good of love is of the will, and all truth from it is of the understanding. Therefore “Ephraim,” his brother, signifies the intellectual truth of that good. Because “the mountain of Bashan” signifies that good, “the hills” of that mountain signify goods in act. Because it is the will that acts—for every activity of the mind and body is from the will, as everything active of thought and speech is from the understanding—therefore the joy arising from the good of love is described and meant by “skipping” and “leaping.” This makes clear what is signified by, “A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; a mountain of hills is the mountain of Bashan; why leap ye, ye mountains, ye hills of the mountain?” Because the Lord dwells with man in his voluntary good, from which are goods in act, it is said, “God desires to dwell in it; yea, Jehovah will inhabit it perpetually.”

AE 163:8. “Og, king of Bashan was left of the remnants of the Rephaim: behold, his bed was a bed of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length of it, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man” (Deut. 3:11). The bed of Og is here described because he was of the remnants of the Rephaim, and because he was king of Bashan. For by the Rephaim were signified those who more than all others were in the love of self, and therefore intensely natural, and from the persuasion of their own importance above others, were in falsities of every kind... By Bashan was signified the external of the church, thus the natural. For Bashan was outside of the land of Canaan, where the church was. On this account, the bed of Og, king of Bashan, was described, which would not have been done but for the sake of the spiritual signification of Og, as mentioned above.

AE 727:6. Feed Thy people with Thy rod, the flock of Thine heritage; they shall feed in Bashan and Gilead according to the days of an age (Mic. 7:14). “Feed Thy people with Thy rod” signifies the instruction of those who are of the church in Divine truths from the Word. “To feed” signifies to instruct; “people” means those who are of the church in truths, and “rod” means where the Word is, because it is Divine truth. “The flock of [Thine] heritage” signifies those of the church who are in the spiritual things of the Word, which are the truths of its internal sense. “They shall feed in Bashan and Gilead” signifies instruction in the goods of the church and in its truths from the natural sense of the Word.

previous		next