146. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. That this signifies that to those who conquer in temptations will be given the delight of heavenly love from the Divine Human of the Lord is evident from the signification of him that overcometh, as being those who conquer in temptations; for such are treated of in what is written to the angel of this church (as may be seen above, n. 130); also from the signification of I will give to eat, as being to be appropriated and conjoined by love and charity (concerning which see Arcana Coelestia 2187, 2343, 3168, 3513, 5643), and because it is said concerning the hidden manna, by which is meant the Lord as to the Divine Human; by eating thereof, is here signified the delight of heavenly love, for this is appropriated from the Divine Human of the Lord by those who receive Him in love and faith; and from the signification of the hidden manna, as being the Lord as to the Divine Human.

That this is what is meant by manna is evident from the words of the Lord Himself in John:

"Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. The bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is that bread which cometh down from heaven, that he that eateth of it may not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever. The bread that I will give is my flesh" (6:31-58).

That it is the Lord Himself who is meant by manna and by bread, He plainly teaches, for He says, "I am the bread of life that came down from heaven." That it is the Lord as to the Divine Human, He also teaches when He says, "The bread which I will give is my flesh."

[2] The Lord taught the same when He instituted the holy supper:

"Jesus took bread, and blessed, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body" (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19).

To eat of this bread is to be conjoined to Him by love, for to eat signifies to appropriate and be conjoined, as said above; and love is spiritual conjunction. The same thing is signified by eating in the kingdom of God, in Luke:

"Blessed is he that eateth bread in the kingdom of God" (14:15).

Again:

"Ye shall eat and drink at my table in the kingdom of God" (22:30).

In Matthew:

"Many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom" of God (8:11).

(That by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is meant the Lord, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 1893, 4615, 6098, 6185, 6276, 6804, 6847.)

And in John:

"Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man will give unto you" (6:27).

[3] (That the Son of man is the Lord as to the Divine Human, may be seen above, n. 63.) The reason why it is called hidden manna is, because the delight of heavenly love, which those receive who are conjoined to the Lord by love is quite unknown to those who are not in heavenly love; and this delight no one can receive but he who acknowledges the Divine Human of the Lord; for it proceeds from this. Because this delight was unknown to the sons of Israel in the desert, they therefore called it manna, as is evident in Moses:

"Jehovah said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And in the morning the dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the desert there lay a small round thing; and when they saw it, they said, It is manna (What is this?). Moses said unto them, This is the bread which Jehovah hath given you to eat. And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna" (Exodus 16:3 to the end).

"Jehovah fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live" (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The reason why this delight, which is meant by manna, was unknown to the sons of Israel was, that they were in bodily delight more than other nations; and those who are in this delight cannot know anything at all of heavenly delight. (That the sons of Israel were of such a character may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 248.) It is called delight, and by this is meant the delight of love; for all the delight of life is from love.

[4] Because it is the delight of heavenly love that is signified by eating of the hidden manna, it is therefore called the bread of the heavens in David:

"Jehovah commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of the heavens; and rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the corn of the heavens" (Psalm 78:23, 24).

And in another place:

"Jehovah satisfied them with the bread of the heavens" (Psalm 105:40).

It is called the bread of the heavens because it rained down from heaven with the dew, but in the spiritual sense it is called the bread of the heavens because it flows down from the Lord through the angelic heaven; in this sense, no other heaven is meant, and no other bread than that which nourishes the soul of man. That bread is here meant in this sense is evident from the words of the Lord himself in John, where He says, that

He is the manna or bread which came down from heaven (John 6:31-58).

And in Moses, where it is said

that Jehovah fed them with manna that He might teach that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The utterance of the mouth of Jehovah is everything that proceeds from the Lord, and this, specifically, is Divine truth united with Divine good (as may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 13, 133, 139, 140, 284-290).

[5] This delight is also described by correspondences in Moses:

The manna was "like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like a cake made with honey" (Exodus 16:31).

And in another place:

"They made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as of the juice of oil" (Numbers 11:7, 8).

The reason why the manna had such an appearance and taste was, that the white seed of coriander signifies truth from a celestial origin, a cake the good of celestial love, honey its external delight, oil that love itself, and its juice, whence was the taste, its internal delight, and the rain with the dew, in which the manna was, the influx of Divine truth in which that delight is contained. (That seed signifies truth from a heavenly origin, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 3038, 3373, 10248, 10249: that white is said of that truth, n. 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319; that cake signifies the good of heavenly love, n. 7978, 9992, 9993; that oil signifies that love itself, n. 886, 3728, 9780, 9954, 10261, 10269; hence its juice signifies its delight, because the taste is therefrom and the taste is the delight and pleasantness, see n. 3502, 4791-4805. But more may be seen concerning these things in the explanation of chapter 16 of Exodus in Arcana Coelestia.) The reason why the delight of celestial love is signified by eating of the hidden manna, although by the hidden manna the Lord as to the Divine Human is signified, is that it is the same thing whether we say the Divine Human of the Lord, or the Divine love, for the Lord is Divine love itself, and what proceeds from Him is Divine good united to Divine truth; both belong to love, and are also the Lord in heaven. Therefore to eat of Him is to be conjoined to Him, and this is effected by love from Him. (But these things may be better understood from what is said and shown in the work, Heaven and Hell 13-19, 116-125, 126-140; and also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 210-222 and 307.)

10453. 'And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets' means the outward sense of the Word and the inward - which come from the Divine - and Divine Truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'the tablets' as the Word in its entirety, dealt with immediately above in 10452, but at this point the outward form of the Word, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'the work of God' as its coming from the Divine; from the meaning of 'the writing' as the inward form of the Word, also dealt with below, so that 'the writing of God' is the inward form of the Word coming from the Divine, and thus is Divine Truth; and from the meaning of 'engraved on the tablets' as the inward impressed on and so contained within the outward.

[2] The reason why the tablets here mean the outward form of the Word is that they are distinguished here from the writing, which is its inward form; but when they are not distinguished from the writing they mean the inward and the outward forms of the Word together, thus the Word in its entirety, as above in 10452. They are distinguished here because these tablets were broken, but nevertheless the same words were afterwards inscribed by Jehovah on the other tablets which were hewn by Moses. The outward form of the Word is its literal sense, the inward form is its internal sense. The former - the literal sense - is meant by 'the tablets', because this sense is like a tablet or level surface on which the internal sense is inscribed.

[3] The breaking by Moses of the tablets which were the work of God, when he saw the calf and the dances, and the hewing by Moses, as commanded by Jehovah, of other tablets, which then had the same words inscribed on them (so that the tablets were no longer the work of God but the work of Moses, though the writing was still the writing of God), hold an arcanum unknown up to now. The arcanum is that the literal sense of the Word would have been different if the Word had been written among another people, or if the character of the Israelite people had not been such as it was. For the literal sense of the Word is all about that people since the Word was written among them, as is evident from both the historical sections and the prophetical parts of the Word. They were a people steeped in evil because they were idolatrous at heart; yet in order that the internal sense and the external sense might be in agreement that people had to be highly acclaimed, and to be called God's people, a holy nation, and a peculiar treasure. Consequently the simple, who would be taught by means of the outward sense of the Word, would believe that that nation was all those things, as that nation itself also believes, and indeed as the majority in the Christian world do at the present day. Most of the things furthermore that present themselves in and constitute the outward sense of the Word were ones that were permitted on account of their hardness of heart, such as those referred to in Matthew 19:8 and also others which need not be mentioned here.

[4] Since therefore the literal sense of the Word came to be what it was because of what those people were like, the tablets which were the work of God were broken and others, as commanded by Jehovah, were hewn by Moses. But since they nevertheless had the same holy and Divine content within them the same words as were on the first tablets were inscribed by Jehovah on them, as is evident from the following verses in Moses,

Jehovah said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. And Jehovah wrote on those tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words. Exodus 34:1, 4, 28.

And elsewhere,

At that time Jehovah said to me, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. And Jehovah wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Words. Afterwards Jehovah gave them to me. Deuteronomy 10:1-4.

[5] The fact that Jehovah did not acknowledge that people as His own people - even though they were called such so that the inward sense would accord with the outward - but as Moses' people is clear from the present chapter,

Your people have corrupted themselves, whom you caused to come up out of the land of Egypt. Go! lead the people to what I have spoken of to you. Exodus 32:7, 34.

And further on,

And Jehovah spoke to Moses, Go up, you and the people whom you have caused to come up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I will send an angel before you, for I will not go up in your midst because you ¹ are a stiff-necked people. Exodus 33:1-3.

[6] The like is meant by Moses' being put in the hole of the rock, and his not being allowed to see Jehovah's face, but only His back parts, Exodus 33:22-23. The like is also meant, when the skin on Moses' face shone, by his putting a veil onto his face whenever he talked to the children of Israel, Exodus 34:30-35. What the character of that people would be is foretold by Jehovah to Abram, when he wanted his seed to inherit the land of Canaan, where it is stated that after Abram had parted down the middle the three year old heifer, the three year old she-goat, and the three year old ram, which served for entering into a covenant,

A deep sleep came over Abram, and behold, a dread of a great darkness was coming over him. And when the sun went down there was thick darkness, and behold, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. Genesis 15:8, 9, 12, 17.

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