6873. Verses 13-15 And Moses said to God, Behold, I am coming to the children of Israel and saying to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to your and they may say to me, What is His name? What am I to say to them? And God said to Moses, I Am Who I Am. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: I Am has sent me to you. And God said further still to Moses, Thus you are to say to the children of Israel: Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham. the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you; this is My name forever, ¹ and this is My memorial from one generation to another. ²

'And Moses said to God' means perception from the Divine. 'Behold, I am coming to the children of Israel' means regarding those belonging to the spiritual Church. 'And saying to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you' means that He who was the God of the Ancient Church will be with those belonging to the spiritual Church. 'And they may say to me, What is His name?' means, What is His essential nature? 'What am I to say to them?' means, What is the reply to be? 'And God said to Moses' means the instruction that is provided first. 'I Am Who I Am' means the Being and the Coming-into-Being of all things throughout creation. 'And He said, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel' means the instruction that is provided second. 'I Am has sent me to you' means that the Divine Coming-into-Being will be in that Church. 'And God said further still to Moses, Thus you are to say to the children of Israel' means the instruction that is provided third. 'The God of your fathers' means Him who was the God of the Ancient Church. 'The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' means the Divine itself and the Divine Human, thus the Lord. 'Has sent me to you' means that He will be in their Church. 'This is My name forever' means that the Divine Human has the essential nature of the Divine itself. 'And this is My memorial from one generation to another' means that It is to be worshipped perpetually.

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454. Some spirits think that heaven and heavenly joy consist in a life of ease in which they are waited on by others. But they are told that happiness in no way consists in being inactive and finding happiness in that. This would mean that everybody wished to subordinate other people's happiness to his own, and when everybody wished to do that nobody would have it. Such life would not be an active life but a life of idleness in which they would become listless, even though they may well know that unless one is active there is no happiness in life. Angelic life consists in use, and in good deeds of charity. For angels never feel happier than when they are informing and teaching spirits that stream in from the world, or when they are ministering to men and are preventing the evil spirits with them overstepping the mark, and inspiring men with what is good; also when they are arousing the dead into the life of eternity, and after that introducing such souls into heaven if they are capable of it. The happiness they find in all this is more than can possibly be described. Angels in this way are images of the Lord; they love their neighbour more than themselves; and this is what makes heaven heaven. Consequently angelic happiness consists in use, stems from use, and is proportionate to use, that is, to the good deeds of love and charity. As for those spirits who had adopted the idea that heavenly joy consisted in being idle, and that in idleness they would be experiencing eternal joy, they were allowed - once told all this to make them ashamed of that idea - to perceive what such a life was really like. They perceived that it was an utterly dreary kind of life, and destructive of all joy; and that after a short while they would find it repulsive and nauseating.