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.

3128. And told her mother’s house according to these words. That this signifies toward natural good of every kind whithersoever enlightenment could reach, is evident from the signification of the “mother’s house,” as being the good of the external man, that is, natural good. (That a “house” denotes good may be seen above, n. 2233, 2234, 2559; also that man’s external or natural is from the mother, but the internal from the father, n. 1815.) The good with man is compared in the Word to a “house,” and on this account a man who is in good is called a “house of God;” but internal good is called the “father’s house,” and the good that is in the same degree is called the “house of the brethren;” but external good, which is the same as natural good, is called the “mother’s house.” Moreover all good and truth are born in this manner, namely, by the influx of internal good as of a father into external good as of a mother.

[2] As this verse treats of the origin of the truth which is to be conjoined with good in the rational, it is therefore said that Rebekah (by whom this truth is represented) ran to the house of her mother, for that was the origin of this truth. For as before said and shown, all good flows in by an internal way (that is, by the way of the soul) into man’s rational, and through this into his faculty of knowing, even into that which is of the senses; and by enlightenment there it causes truths to be seen. Truths are called forth thence, and are divested of their natural form, and are conjoined with good in the midway, that is, in the rational, and at the same time they make the man rational, and at last spiritual. But how these things are accomplished is utterly unknown to man; because at this day it is scarcely known what good is, and that it is distinct from truth; still less that man is reformed by means of the influx of good into truth, and by the conjunction of the two; neither is it known that the rational is distinct from the natural. And when these things, which are most general, are not known, it cannot possibly be known how the initiation of truth into good, and the conjunction of the two, is effected-which are the subjects treated of in this chapter in its internal sense. But whereas these arcana have been revealed, and are manifest to those who are in good, that is, who are angelic minds, therefore however obscure they may appear to others, they nevertheless are to be set forth, because they are in the internal sense.

[3] Concerning the enlightenment from good through truth in the natural man, which is here called the “mother’s house,” the case is this: Divine good with man inflows into his rational, and through the rational into his natural, and indeed into its memory-knowledges, that is, into the knowledges and doctrinal things therein, as before said; and there by a fitting of itself in, it forms truths for itself, through which it then enlightens all things that are in the natural man. But if the life of the natural man is such that it does not receive the Divine good, but either repels it, or perverts it, or suffocates it, then the Divine good cannot be fitted in, thus it cannot form for itself truths; and consequently the natural can no longer be enlightened; for enlightenment in the natural man is effected from good through truths; and when there is no longer enlightenment, there can be no reformation. This is the reason why in the internal sense the natural man also is much treated of in regard to its quality; thus whence truth is, namely, that it is from good there.

4727. Come now therefore and let us slay him. That this signifies the extinction of the essential of doctrine concerning the Lord’s Divine Human, is evident from the signification of “slaying,” as being to extinguish; and from the representation of Joseph, whom they wished to kill, as being the Divine truth of the Lord, and specifically the doctrine concerning His Divine Human, which has been shown above to be an essential of doctrine (n. 4723). That the church in acknowledging faith alone has extinguished this essential truth, is known; for which of them believes the Lord’s Human to be Divine? Do they not turn away at the very proposition? When yet in the ancient churches it was believed that the Lord who was to come into the world was a Divine Man, and also when seen by them He was called Jehovah, as is plain from many passages in the Word, but for the present only this from Isaiah will be adduced:

The voice of one crying the wilderness, Prepare ye the Way of Jehovah, make level in the solitude a pathway for our God (Isaiah 40:3).

That these words were spoken of the Lord, and that by John the Baptist the way was prepared and a pathway made level for Him, is very evident from the evangelists (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23); and further from the Lord’s own words, that He was one with the Father, and that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father; also that to Him was given all power in heaven and on earth, and that judgment belonged to Him. One who knows even a little about power in heaven and on earth, and about judgment, can know that they would be nothing unless He were Divine as to the Human also.

[2] Those who are in faith alone cannot know what makes man new or sanctifies him, still less what made the Lord’s Human Divine; for they know nothing of love and charity, and it is love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor that make man new and sanctify him, while the Divine love itself made the Lord Divine. For love is the very being of man, and hence is his living; and it forms man according to an image of itself, just as the soul of man, which is his interior essence, as it were creates or fashions the body into an image, of itself; and indeed in such a way that by means of the body it acts and has sensation just as it wills and thinks. Thus the body is as the effect, and the soul as the cause in which is the end; consequently the soul is the all in the body, as the cause of the end is the all in the effect. The Human of Him whose soul was Jehovah Himself (as was the case with the Lord, for He was conceived of Jehovah) could not when glorified be other than Divine. From this it is plain how greatly those err who make the Lord’s Human, after it was glorified, to be like the human of a man, when yet it is Divine. From His Divine Human proceeds all the wisdom, all the intelligence, and also all the light, in heaven. Whatever proceeds from Him is holy; and the holy that is not from the Divine is not holy.