At face value, the Ten Commandments can seem intense and unforgiving. But Emanuel Swedenborg’s understanding of the internal sense of the Bible—spiritual meanings that lie beneath the literal words—can give us a new perspective on these familiar rules.

In this episode of their Swedenborg and Life web series, hosts Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose study the inner meaning of the first commandment.

(Verweise: Apocalypse Revealed 950; Arcana Coelestia 8864, 8865, 8868, 8869, 8875, 8878, 8879, 8880, 8881)

8483. '[And] Moses was incensed with them' means that [therefore] they were averse to God's truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'being incensed' or being angry - when said of Moses, who represents God's truth - as aversion to it, dealt with in 5034, 5798. The appearance is that the Lord is averse or turns away, but in reality it is man who turns away, 5798. The Word many times attributes to Jehovah anger and wrath, even fury, against people, when in fact Jehovah radiates pure love and pure mercy, and no anger whatever, towards a person. That way of speaking about Him in the Word is due to appearances; for when people are opposed to the Divine and as a result shut off from themselves the flow of love and mercy, they plunge themselves into the misery of punishment and into hell. This seems like lack of pity and like vengeance on the part of the Divine because of the evil they have done; but in fact there is nothing of the sort present in the Divine, only in evil itself. But see what has been shown already about these matters in 1857, 2447, 6071, 6832, 6991, 6997, 7533, 7632, 7643, 7679, 7710, 7877, 7926, 8197, 8214, 8223, 8226-8228, 8282. From all this it is evident that 'Moses was incensed with them' means that they were averse to God's truth.