9371. THE INTERNAL SENSE.

Verses 1-2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and bow yourselves afar off; and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him. “And He said unto Moses,” signifies that which concerns the Word in general; “come up unto Jehovah,” signifies conjunction with the Lord; “thou and Aaron,” signifies the Word in the internal sense and the external sense; “Nadab and Abihu,” signifies doctrine from both senses; “and seventy of the elders of Israel,” signifies the chief truths of the church which are of the Word, or of doctrine, and which agree with good; “and bow yourselves afar off,” signifies humiliation and adoration from the heart, and then the influx of the Lord; “and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah,” signifies the conjunction and presence of the Lord through the Word in general; “and they shall not come near,” signifies no separate conjunction and presence; “and the people shall not come up with him,” signifies no conjunction whatever with the external apart from the internal.

1672. And the kings that were with him. That this signifies the apparent truth which is of that good, is evident from the signification of “kings” in the Word. “Kings,” “kingdoms,” and “peoples,” in the historical and the prophetical parts of the Word, signify truths and the things which are of truths, as may be abundantly confirmed. In the Word an accurate distinction is made between a “people” and a “nation;” by a “people” are signified truths, and by a “nation” goods, as before shown (n. 1259, 1260). “Kings” are predicated of peoples, but not so much of nations. Before the sons of Israel sought for kings, they were a nation, and represented good, or the celestial; but after they desired a king, and received one, they became a people, and did not represent good or the celestial, but truth or the spiritual; which was the reason why this was imputed to them as a fault (see 1 Samuel 8:7-22, concerning which subject, of the Lord’s Divine mercy elsewhere). As Chedorlaomer is named here, and it is added, “the kings that were with him,” both good and truth are signified; by “Chedorlaomer,” good, and by “the kings,” truth. But what was the quality of the good and truth at the beginning of the Lord’s temptations has already been stated.

7648. 'And your houses will be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians' means that falsity will reign in every single thing in the natural from the inner part of it to the outermost. This is clear from the meaning of 'being filled' as reigning, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Pharaoh's houses, the houses of all his servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians' as every single thing in the natural, dealt with in 7753, 7355, at this point from the inner part of it to the outermost, in keeping with the explanation above in 7645. The reason why 'being filled' means reigning is that when a person's mind is filled with falsities arising from evils, filled so completely that leading others astray by means of falsities and doing evil give him delight, he is said to be ruled by this delight; and the actual affection that controls him is called his reigning affection. That which fills a person's entire mind, that is, both his thought and his will, is said to reign everywhere; what a person loves above all else and has as his end in view reigns in that universal way. It is present within every smallest part of his will and thought. What it is exactly that reigns everywhere may be recognized from the person's pleasure when he attains his ends, or his disappointment when he does not. That which reigns everywhere in a person shapes the contours of his spirit; the face of his spirit is in exact accord with it. If evil and falsity reign, his spirit is clothed with a devilish form; but if goodness and truth reign the form is angelic. For regarded in itself the spirit is affection embodied in a form; and the dominant affection is the essential form itself, while all its other affections adapt themselves to this.