In Neville Goddard’s teaching, the Bible is not a record of external history, but a psychological drama in which every character, place, and event symbolises states of consciousness. One of the most revealing examples is Moab — a nation that, throughout Scripture, stands in tension with Israel. In the language of states, Moab is not “out there” but a condition in us, born when the old self is not truly left behind.
The Name and Meaning of Moab
The name Moab (Hebrew: מואב) means from father (mo-ab). In Hebrew symbolism, the first syllable mo (from the letter Mem) evokes water, the womb, or the creative mother; Ab means father. Moab therefore carries the idea of the union of mother and father. Yet in the biblical narrative, Moab’s origin is not from a new, free union, but from one bound to the past.
Genesis 2:24 declares:
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
Spiritually understood, this is the law of assumption in action: the man is your present sense of self, the father and mother are the old mental patterns and conditioning that gave you your former identity, and the wife is the new state of consciousness you choose to embody. To “leave father and mother” is to sever mental allegiance to the old state so that a new creation may be born. Moab symbolises what happens when this leaving is incomplete.
Lot and the Birth of Moab
Moab’s origin story in Genesis 19 is one of fear and desperation. After Sodom’s destruction, Lot’s eldest daughter conceives a son by her father and names him Moab. Lot, once journeying with Abraham (faith), had separated from him and settled toward Sodom — a symbol of the pull toward the senses and the old life. His wife’s backward glance, turning her to salt, mirrors Lot’s own inability to release the past.
From a psychological view, this “incest” is the mind producing offspring from itself without the union with a new, higher state. It is an assumption born in isolation, reaction, and survival — imagination turned inward on fear. Moab is the child of an unbroken tie to the old “father and mother.”
Moab as the State That Clings to the Past
Throughout Scripture, Moab appears in ways that reveal its inner meaning:
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Moab Opposes Israel (Numbers 22–24): Balak, king of Moab, seeks to curse Israel — the higher ideal state. This is the inner voice of doubt attempting to undermine your chosen assumption.
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Israel Falls to Moab (Numbers 25): Israel “joins” Moabite women and worships Baal-peor — a return to sense-based living and the evidence of the outer world. It’s what happens when old reasoning seduces you away from your aim.
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The Famine in Moab (Ruth 1): Elimelech’s family leaves Bethlehem (abundance) for Moab (limitation). Even so, Ruth’s return to Israel shows that redemption is possible when devotion to the new state is chosen.
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Israel Serves Eglon (Judges 3): Israel is subject to the king of Moab for eighteen years — the long reign of an entrenched limiting assumption. Ehud’s deliverance symbolises the subconscious act that overthrows it.
In every case, Moab represents the unleft past — the old assumption that still governs because it has not been replaced at the root.
Moab and Israel: The Inner Conflict
If Moab is the child of distorted imagination, Israel is the awakened self. Israel — “he who prevails with God” — arises from the struggle of faith and the revelation of “I AM” as the creative power. Moab is born from fear and necessity; Israel is born from desire united with belief.
The biblical hostility between Moab and Israel is therefore the tension between the false self and the true Self, between imagination misused and imagination disciplined by vision. It is not destroyed by condemnation, but transcended by recognition — by leaving the old state entirely and cleaving to the new.
The Call of Genesis 2:24
Genesis 2:24 is more than a marriage verse; it is the divine pattern for manifestation. The leaving is mental and emotional — a severing from all that once defined you. The cleaving is a complete identification with your chosen state. Moab warns of what happens when the leaving is partial: the old self continues to produce its offspring, and your world bears mixed fruit.
Neville taught that to manifest a desire, you must live in the end — to be so married to the new state that the old has no claim on you. Moab is the sign you have not left father and mother; Israel is the sign you have.
Final Thought
Moab lives in us whenever we imagine from fear, cling to the past, or half-step into a new state while still glancing back. Israel rises when we fully embody the truth that “I AM” creates reality. The choice is always before us: remain in Moab under the rule of old assumptions, or leave father and mother, cleave to the new, and become one with our desired state.
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