Pittsburgh New Church

Of all the enemies of the Children of Israel, the Amalekites are the worst. Several times, the Lord commands the Israelites to utterly destroy them. This is commanded to teach us, by means of correspondences, how we should respond to the worst of the evil inclinations we may discover in ourselves. We are to hold no negotiations, make no deals, and show no mercy. This is the only way to deal with the evil inclinations hidden deep within our will. Anything short of complete separation gives those secret inclinations the ability to arouse all the other inclinations towards evil we have inherited.

The battle against these inclinations is fought with the zeal stirred up in us by angels associated with this fight. These angels arrange the Lord’s truths into a militant order, represented by Joshua and his chosen men. But these truths are effective only when we look to the Lord, only when using the Lord’s Word—represented by the rock, Aaron and Hur—to challenge the false ideas these enemies whisper into our ears. The Lord’s truth, represented by Moses, can then direct the angelic defense of our efforts to live our lives in the ways that lead to heaven.

At this point in the story of the children of Jacob, we learn what our final steps are to cooperate with the Lord in our rebirth as angels. Earlier we learned of the work required to earn the basic ability to learn our role in our salvation. Then we learned what we can do to move out of a state of mind where selfish and worldly delights dominate. Now, we learn how we can move into a state of mind where heavenly delights reign. The key is to perform works of useful service knowing that the Lord will attach delights and happiness to those actions; that doing things for other people feels nice. And while we practice that, the Lord reorders our natural self to correspond to our spiritual self. When this is finished, our two minds are united into one mind ruled by the delights derived from the good things of heaven.

We learned in the previous chapter of Genesis that the story of the marriage of Jacob and Rachel is the story of our preparation for regeneration or rebirth. We also learned that the first four sons of Leah represent the progressive states of life we go through as we become the church in external things: seeing, hearing, and doing or knowledge, obedience, and use.

In this chapter of Genesis, the Lord is teaching the steps to take to make the transition from being the church is external things to being the church in internal things, that is, not just in the way be behave, but in the way we think and feel (becoming genuinely loving and peaceful).