When the Bible speaks of "Jehovah," it is representing love itself, the inmost love that is the essence of the Lord. That divine love is one, whole and complete in itself, and Jehovah also is one, a name applied only to the Lord. The divine love expresses itself in the form of wisdom. Love, then, is the essence of God -- His inmost. Wisdom -- the loving understanding of how to put love into action -- is slightly more external, giving love a way to express itself. Wisdom, however, is expressed in a great variety of thoughts and ideas, what the Writings collectively call divine truth. There are also many imaginary gods, and sometimes angels and people can be called gods (the Lord said Moses would be as a god to Aaron). So when the Bible calls the Lord "God," it is in most cases referring to divine truth. In other cases, "God" has reference to what is called the divine human. The case there is this: As human beings, we cannot engage the Lord directly as divine love. It is too powerful and too pure. Instead, we have to approach Him by understanding Him through divine truth. Divine truth, then, is the Lord in human form, a form we can approach and understand. Thus "God" is also used in reference to this human aspect, because it is an expression of truth.

8818. 'And they stood at the foot of the mountain' means a long way off from the good of celestial love. This is clear from the meaning of 'Mount Sinai' as heaven, and so as God's good united to Divine Truth there, dealt with in 8805; and from the meaning of 'standing at the foot of it' as a long way off or far away from that good. The meaning here in the internal historical sense is the Israelite nation, which was devoid of the good of celestial love, see above in 8788, 8806, and was therefore a long way off from it, which also accounts for what is said below, in verses 21-22, 24-25, that Moses warned the people and also the priests not to break through the bounds, nor to touch the mountain, and so die. But in the internal sense, which refers to those belonging to the spiritual Church, the meaning of the people's standing at the foot of the mountain is that they were not allowed to go up in arrogant self-confidence to a higher heaven, or if they did they would die, regarding which see 8794, 8797.