10573. Verses 18-23. And he said, Make me see I pray Thy glory. And He said, I will make all My good pass by over thy faces, and will call on the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will show grace to whom I show grace, and I will show mercy to whom I show mercy; and He said, Thou canst not see My faces, because a man doth not see Me and live. And Jehovah said, Behold a place with Me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock; and it shall be when My glory passeth by that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover the palm of My hand over thee until I have passed by. And I will remove the palm of My hand, and thou shalt see My back parts; and My faces shall not be seen. “And he said, Make me see I pray Thy glory” signifies the noticing of internal Divine truth in the external; “and He said, I will make all My good pass by over thy faces” signifies all the Divine of heaven and of the church above the external separate from the internal; “and will call on the name of Jehovah before thee” signifies what is holy of Divine worship there; “and I will show grace to whom I show grace, and I will show mercy to whom I show mercy” signifies that Divine truth and good shall be revealed to those who receive; “and He said, thou canst not see My faces” signifies that the interior Divine things of the church, of worship, and of the Word cannot appear to the Israelitish nation; “because a man doth not see Me and live” signifies that the Divine Itself cannot be seen such as it is in Itself, but such as it is through the Lord in heaven; “and Jehovah said, Behold a place with Me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock” signifies a state of faith in God; “and it shall be when My glory passeth by” signifies the interior things of the Word, of the church, and of worship; “that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock” signifies the obscurity and falsity of faith such as are with those who are in external things without what is internal; “and will cover the palm of My hand over thee until I have passed by” signifies the closing of the internal; “and I will remove the palm of My hand, and thou shalt see My back parts, and My faces shall not be seen” signifies that they should see the external things of the Word, of the church, and of worship, but not the internal things.

8814. And a heavy cloud upon the mountain. That this signifies a Divine state in respect to those who were about to receive, is evident from the signification of “a cloud,” as being truth accommodated to those who are about to receive, thus the Word in the letter (see n. 8443, 8781); here truth Divine accommodated to the people descended from Jacob; and because this people was in great darkness as to truths Divine, it is therefore called “a heavy cloud,” and above (verse 9) “the density of a cloud,” and below (verse 18) “smoke of fire as the smoke of a furnace.” In what great darkness they were, can be seen from what has been related above (n. 8788) about that nation, and also from the fact that the things which pertain to the internal man were not revealed to them, but only those which pertain to the external man. For they did not apprehend internal things, nor were they willing to apprehend them, because these were contrary to their loves, which were that they might be the most exalted of all peoples in the world, and also the most opulent of all, and that all other nations might be as nothing in comparison with them. Where these loves are, there heavenly loves cannot be received, for these are extinguished and suffocated by the worldly loves. This is the reason why Jehovah, that is, the Lord, appeared to them in a dense and heavy cloud, in like manner as is the case in the other life, where they who are in falsities from evil are encompassed with a dense and black cloud in accordance with the quality and the amount of the falsities. This appears to everyone there before the eyes, and yet the sun there is continually shining. (On this subject see what has been said above, n. 6832, 8137, 8138.) Speaking generally, the Divine in the other life appears to everyone according to the quality of his faith and love.