7710. 'Stretch out your hand towards heaven' means exercising the power of God's truth in heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'stretching out the hand' as an exercising of power, dealt with above in 7673; from the representation of Moses, the one who was told to 'stretch out his hand', as God's truth, dealt with in 6723, 6752, 7010, 7014, 7382; and from the meaning of 'heaven' as the angelic heaven. How it is that exercising the power of God's truth in heaven could bring about the new state among the molesting ones that is meant by 'thick darkness' is clear from what has been shown in 7643, 7679. There it has been shown that the Lord is continually rearranging heaven, and that He endows those in heaven, and newcomers, with celestial and spiritual good. This continual rearranging causes the vastation which the evil undergo in stages; for after rearrangement that good flows from a more immediate position towards the evil who are governed by the opposite of such good. (The inflow from God continues onwards right into what is opposed to it and in so doing keeps the hells bound and chained.) And since the evil turn all good into evil, they turn into greater evil the good that flows in from a more immediate position. The more they do so, the stronger is their resistance to what is good and true, that is, the fiercer is their molestation of it. So it is that the vastation they undergo proceeds in stages, till at length they are cast into hell, which is the final stage of it. From all this one may see that what emanates from the Lord is nothing but good, and that He does not lay waste the evil, still less cast them into hell, but that they themselves cause it to happen.

7014. 'And Moses went and returned' means a resumption of the former life. This is clear from the meaning of 'going' as life, dealt with in 4882, 5493, 5605; from the meaning of 'returning', or going back, as living where he had done so formerly; and from the representation of 'Moses' as the Lord in respect of the law or truth from God, dealt with in 6771, 6827. When Moses was on Mount Horeb with Jehovah, who appeared in a flame of fire, he represented the Lord in respect of Divine Truth; but now that he is with Jethro his father-in-law, who is the good of the Church which is guided by the truth that goes with simple good, he represents the Lord in respect of truth from God. Here and elsewhere in the Word the internal sense describes how, during all the states of life which the Lord passed through in the world, He was making His Human Divine. These states followed one after another, as may be recognized from the fact that when He was a young child the Lord was like a young child, and after that grew in intelligence and wisdom, all the time instilling Divine Love into them till at length His Human too became Divine Love, which is Divine Being (Esse) or Jehovah. And this being the way in which the Lord put on the Divine - that is, in one state after another - He therefore first made Himself truth from God, after this Divine Truth, and finally Divine Good. These were the stages in the glorification of the Lord that are described here and elsewhere in the internal sense of the Word.