Week 2    Day 5

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The Inheritance of Judah—Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron

Joshua 15:20-21, 45-47. This [is] the inheritance of the tribe of the sons of Judah according to their families. And the cities at the edge of the tribe of the sons of Judah, to the border of Edom southward, were... Ekron and her towns and her villages; from Ekron and to the sea, all that were by the side of Ashdod, and their villages; Ashdod and her towns and her villages; Gaza, her towns and her villages, even to the brook of Egypt, and the Great Sea, and the border.

I Samuel 6:16-17. And the five satraps of the Philistines saw [it], and they returned to Ekron in that day. And these [are] the hemorrhoids of gold which the Philistines returned [for] a guilt [offering] to Jehovah: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one.

AE 700:20. The Philistines represented, and thence signified, those who make no account of the good of love and charity, and thus no account of the good of life, placing everything of religion in knowledge and cognition. Therefore, they were like those at the present day who make faith alone, that is, faith separated from charity, the essential of the church and the essential of salvation. This is why they were called “the uncircumcised,” for to be uncircumcised signifies to be destitute of spiritual love, thus of good. And because they had reference to those within the church, they were not spiritual, but merely natural, since he who makes no account of the good of charity and of life becomes merely natural, and even sensual, loving only worldly things, and is unable to understand any truths spiritually, and the truths he apprehends naturally he either falsifies or defiles. Such are they who are meant in the Word by the “Philistines.”

From this it is evident why the Philistines so frequently fought with the sons of Israel, and that sometimes the Philistines conquered, and sometimes the sons of Israel. The Philistines conquered when the sons of Israel departed from the statutes and precepts in not doing them; but when the sons of Israel lived according to these, they conquered. To live according to the precepts and statutes was their good of love and good of life.

At this time the sons of Israel were conquered by the Philistines because they had departed from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of other gods, especially to the worship of Ashtaroth, as can be seen from what Samuel said to them (1 Sam. 7:3). For the same reason also the ark had been taken by the Philistines.

AE 700:21. “[H]emorrhoids” signify truth defiled by such evil of life as is with those who are destitute of good, since “blood” signifies truth, and the corrupted blood from hemorrhoids truth defiled; and the hinder part, where the hemorrhoids were, signifies natural love, which with those who are not spiritual is the love of the world. “Mice” signify the falsities of the sensual man, which eat up and consume all things of the church, as mice lay waste fields and crops, and also the vegetables underground. Such were their plagues, because they were such, since those who are without good defile truths and also lay waste all things of the church.

AE 700:22. Dagon, the god of the Ashdodites, because of the nearness and presence of the ark, was cast down to the earth, and afterwards his head and the palms of his hands were cast upon the threshold of his temple, because “Dagon” signified their religion, which was wholly without intelligence and without power, because it was without spiritual good, “head” signifying intelligence, and “palms of the hands” power. It is similar in the spiritual world when Divine truth inflows out of heaven with such people, for they then appear as if they were without a head and without palms of the hands because they are without intelligence or power.

AE 700:23. By the advice of their priests and diviners they made golden images of the hemorrhoids and mice, and set them at the side of the ark upon a new cart, to which they tied two milk cows on which no yoke had come, because “gold” signifies the good of love, which heals and purifies from falsities and evils, which are signified by the “hemorrhoids and mice.” Also, a “cart” signifies the doctrine of natural truth, and a “new cart” that doctrine untouched and unpolluted by the falsities of their evil. And the “milk cows” on which no yoke had come signify natural good not yet defiled by falsities, for to bear a yoke signifies to serve, here to serve falsities which defile good. And because such undefiled good agrees with the Divine truth, which was signified by the “ark,” therefore these representatives were adapted and applied. And afterwards the Levites offered the cows as a burnt-offering, which they burned with the wood of the cart.

AE 700:24. The priests and diviners of the Philistines recommended this to be done because a knowledge of correspondences and representations was a common knowledge at that time, since it was their theology, known to the priests and diviners, who were their wise men. But because men at that time had become for the most part merely natural, they regarded these things in an idolatrous way, worshiping the externals and giving no thought to the internals that the externals represented.

AE 740:10. “Beelzebub,” who was the god of Ekron [in II Kings 1:2-3, 6, 16] means the god of all falsities, for “Beelzebub” by derivation means the god of flies, and “flies” signify the falsities of the sensual man, thus falsities of every kind. [See Matt. 2:24-26, 28.]

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