The meaning of burying an enemy in a heap of stones in the Word

As we read in White Horse, "The historical narratives of the Word are representative, and their actual words have significances" (White Horse 12). We are therefore going to take a close look at this using some correspondences with which you have already been familiarized: stones and kings, both representing divine truths and in the latter case also sometimes reasonings -- eg "king of Assyria" -- when in the upright position; or spiritual falsehoods when in the reversed position.

Since we have just gone over the correspondences of gold and silver, we will first look at an instance of gold and silver -- and also raiment -- in the reversed position; and then tie this in with the great heap of stones with which the Children of Israel covered him and all that he had. In the book of Joshua we read, in the episode in which the sin of Achan is the hidden cause of Israel's defeat in battle, the following:

"20 And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done: 21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge [1] of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it" (Joshua 7:18-20).

We have seen how gold is the good of love and silver is the truth of faith; we know therefore that gold and silver here, being in the reversed position, must indicate one of the varieties of sin and error. The fact of spiritual falsehood has been doubly emphasized by including the correspondence raiment, which signifies spiritual knowledge, in with the rest. 

The fact of sin has been multiply emphasized not only by the direct confession of the same but also, as noted, by the mention of gold; and also by the correspondence "covet", which means to be motivated by an evil desire.

If the items which Achan pillaged, an act he had been expressly forbidden to do, are some variety of sin and error; then the remaining question is: what kind?

For the identity of the particular variety of sin and error we have only to turn to the correspondence Babylon, which signifies various things; but here the profanation of good and truth. For Babylon is any system of religious domination from the love of self and the world; any system of religious totalitarianism which inverts the liberating, enlightening Church of God into an enslaving, endarkening anti-Church or whore.

Here, because this totalitarian religious system has been expressly referenced in relation to gold and silver in the reversed position, we know that a specific aspect of Babylon, its profanation of the sacred, the good and the true, has been particularly underlined for us.

We have thus put what has recently been taught to work, with a little extra, and are in a good position to proceed to Achan's fate and thence to others like it. In the same chapter we also read:

"25 And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. 26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger" (Joshua 7:25-26).

It should be noted here that to burn someone with fire indicates that they are evil and in a state of love of self and the world; and to stone someone with stones indicates that they are spiritually false and endarkened. When we encounter evil and the falsehood which supports evil -- the excuses that 'marry' or rather commit adultery with that evil -- then we are supposed to respond with love from the Lord, fire, and truth from the Lord supportive of that love, stone.

We may note also the reference to "the fierceness of His anger": this is specifically a reference to evil and the fact that the evils people commit rebound on them like boomerangs, which the wicked then interpret not as their own evil carrying with it automatic punishment but as the "anger" of God.

We know that we are to respond to sin and error with love and truth wheresoever we encounter them. And when we defeat sin and error in spiritual combat, we more or less gradually raise a heap of stones upon it. The heap itself is the love half of the Heavenly marriage; and the stones themselves are the truth half of the Heavenly marriage. It is essentially like saying that they burned Achan with fire and also stoned him using a different way of saying love and truth. 

It should be noted that every fraught episode and battle with kings and their henchmen described in the Word involves spiritual combat and holy war; for which the historical wars of the Children of Israel are, as it were raiment. For we cannot have rain unless there is particulate matter upon which it can condense; and we cannot have fine spiritual meanings without the literal text to serve them as a coatrack or hanger, or foundation or base.

With this in mind, let us proceed to the next heap of stones:

"24 And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them.

25 And Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage: for thus shall the Lord do to all your enemies against whom ye fight.

26 And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening.

27 And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid, and laid great stones in the cave's mouth, which remain until this very day" (Joshua 10: 24-27).

This is the episode where the Children of Israel 'saved 5 kings for later' in a cave blocked up by stones; and then returned to finish the job. We see, first of all, a reference to essentially stepping on their necks to represent their complete submission. It does to note that the correspondence neck means the communication of higher with lower things and especially the conjunction of good and truth; and of the human with the Lord. We will briefly look at a passage in the auxiliary Proverbs to the Word which exists on this account:

"8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck" (Proverbs 1:8-9).

The instruction is obviously enough divine truth from the Lord; and as for the law of thy mother, the Church, this as any Christian who has paid attention to Paul knows is the law of love. "Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10). 

We thus see the reference love and its supportive truth directly in relation to the neck; for the neck is conjunction of love and its truth. Let us with this in mind return to the five kings and their fate. When we encounter sin and error, especially error here because we are dealing with kings, then we are to put our feet on their necks. The correspondence feet refers to our natural lives, and it is necessary to practice love and truth in our real lives inside and out and thus and only thus to put our feet on the necks of evil kings.

Speaking of evil kings, one will briefly return your attention to the verse from the Apocrypha which shows you how to understand references to kings: 

"[Wisdom] entered into the soul of the servant of the Lord, and withstood dreadful kings in wonders and signs" (Wisdom of Solomon 10:16).

Now we return to Joshua. We see how he smote them and then hung them on trees. What this indicates is that such a one is accursed; for to hang someone on a tree indicates damnation for evil or the insinuation of the same. (One includes the latter nuance because we know that a certain God Man was hanged on a wooden cross; because He was thought accursed by those who saw black as white and evil as good.)

We now reach the final resting point of those kings. Once taken down from the trees, the point that they were accursed having been rather firmly made, they were put back into their cave; upon which entrance great stones were heaped "which remain until this very day".

We have already seen how the Jewish Church regarded Jesus Christ as evil and thus urged His being hung on wood; and we know that they even went to Pilate asking that soldiers would guard His tomb so that the stone could not be removed by His disciples. As we know, the soldiers were put to sleep and that stone was removed, not by the disciples as the Jews feared but by the will and power of the Lord.

It is thus that you should contrast the heap of stones that remains to this day with the stone that was removed right on schedule.

We are now in a position to round the whole matter out. If evil and error visit your heart, if you are tempted by the devils in the wilderness, then your procedure is to oppose them with love and its truth; with the Word and its application. For that is what Jesus did when tempted of the devil: He answered the devil with the Word and with practice to go along with it, inside and out.

Let me take this from the realm of the sublime and down into the realm of everyday life keeping of commandments that devils are tempting us to break. Suppose someone is by nature arrogant and they begin to believe in the Word at the impetus of God and with the assent of their free will. We know from Romans ch.7 that this initiates a reaction from the imperiled flesh, in this case the arrogant part therefore, which senses that it must fight for its life.

" Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful" (Romans 7:13).

Briefly, as we have covered this, those who are told not to do something feel especially like doing it out of native stubborness; this is essentially the most sophisticated form of that reaction and it is the supernatural effect of taking the Word deadly serious as the lamp which guides living one's life and then running smack dab into the sin nature.

So to return to arrogance, let us follow the map of an arrogant person becoming humble. They are earnestly willing to become humble, but they need truths from God to answer the devils in the wilderness. Perhaps one month they learn how to answer the devil with "Be not proud" (Jeremiah 13:15). Perhaps another month they learn how to answer the devil with reminders that we are all equal in the sight of God, who is "no respecter of persons". And perhaps still another month they learn how to answer the devil with the reminder that everything we have which might in this life distinguish us from others comes not from ourselves but from God; and is therefore nothing to be arrogant about. Yet another month, the gradually humbling person learns to answer the devil with the truth that people who exalt themselves do so at other people's expense. On and on, more stones are heaped on that king of excuses to be arrogant. And finally, there is quite a heap of them! And if the person remains humble to the end of their life, that great heap of stones remaineth to this day. 

In sum, there is an amazing amount of fascinating and useful information in the stories of the historical Word; and this topic of heaping stones on kings in the Word and life was not covered previously in the curriculum but will now be included therein henceforth.  Godspeed. 

Appendix:

"'Gather stones; and they took stones and made a heap' means truths arising out of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'stones' as truths, dealt with just above in 4190, and from the meaning of 'a heap' as good. The reason why 'a heap' means good is that in former times before they used to construct altars people made heaps and ate on them as a witness to their being joined together in love. But later on, when the representatives of the ancients were regarded as being holy, instead of heaps they built altars, which also consisted of stones but arranged more methodically, Josh. 22:28, 34. This is why 'a heap' has a similar meaning to an altar, namely the good of love, the stones of it meaning the truths of faith" (Arcana Coelestia 4192).