Week 3    Day 4

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The Inheritance of Manasseh—The Oak Groves of Moreh, and Shechem

The Oak Groves of Moreh

AC 1443. “The oak-grove Moreh” is the first perception. The case is this: There are with man intellectual things, rational things, and things of memory [scientifica]. His inmost things are intellectual, his interior things are rational, and his exterior things are those of the memory [scientifica]. All these are called his spiritual things, which are in the order given here.

The intellectual things, belonging to the celestial man, are compared to a garden of trees of every kind. His rational things are compared to a forest of cedars and similar trees, such as there were in Lebanon. But his memory-knowledges [scientifica] are compared to oak-groves, and this is because of their intertwined branches, such as are those of the oak.

By trees themselves are signified perceptions. For example, by “the trees of the garden of Eden eastward” [are meant] inmost perceptions, or those of intellectual things... By the trees of the forest of Lebanon [are meant] interior perceptions, or those of rational things. But by the trees of an oak-grove [are meant] exterior perceptions, or those of memory-knowledges, which belong to the external man. Hence it is that “the oak-grove Moreh” signifies the Lord’s first perception, for He was still a Child, and His spiritual things were not more interior than this. Besides, the oak-grove Moreh was where the sons of Israel also first came when they passed over the Jordan and saw the land of Canaan, concerning which [we read] in Moses:

Thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanite that dwells in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the oak-groves of Moreh? (Deut. 11:29-30)

By these words also is signified the first of perception, for the entrance of the sons of Israel represents the entrance of the faithful into the Lord’s kingdom.

Shechem

AC 4430. The city Shechem was Abram’s first stopping place when he came from Syria into the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:6), and it was now also Jacob’s first stopping place in coming from Syria, in which he spread his tent, made booths, and erected an altar (Gen. 33:17-20). By the journeys or sojournings of Abraham and Jacob were represented progressions into the truths of faith and goods of love, which in the supreme sense relate to the Lord and in the relative sense to the man who is being regenerated by the Lord.... Hence by the “city Shechem” was signified the first of light (n. 1440, 1441), consequently interior truth, for this is the first of light.

[3] Moreover as regards this city named from Shechem, it was anciently called “Shalem,” as is evident in [Genesis 33]:

Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan (Gen. 33:18).

By “Shalem” is signified tranquility, and by the “city of Shechem” the interior truths of faith, and when a man comes to these truths he comes into a tranquil state, as may be seen above (n. 4393).

But the same city was afterwards called “Shechem,” as may be seen in Joshua:

The bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel caused to go up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred kesitah (Josh. 24:32).

And in the book of Judges:

Gaal the son of Ebed said to the citizens of Shechem, Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerubbaal, and Zebul is his officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem! And why should we serve this man? (Judg. 9:28).

[4] The same city was afterwards called “Sychar,” as is evident in John:

Jesus came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near to the field which Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s spring was there (John 4:5-6).

That by this city is signified interior truth is evident from these passages, and also from others where it is named, as in Hosea:

Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, it has been befouled with blood; and as troops wait for a man, a companionship of priests, on the way to Shechem they kill, because they have wrought wickedness; in the house of Israel, I have seen a foul thing (Hos. 6:8-10).

Here “on the way to Shechem they kill” signifies that they extinguish truths even to those which are interior, thus all external truths. The extinction of interior truth is also signified by Abimelech’s destroying that city and sowing it with salt (Judges 9:45).

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