At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.

9467. 'And purple' means the celestial love of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'purple' as the celestial love of good, the reason why this love is meant by 'purple' being that by the colour red the good of celestial love is meant. For there are two basic colours from which all others are derived, the colour red and the colour white. The colour red means good which belongs to love, while the colour white means truth which belongs to faith. The reason why red means good belonging to love is that this colour exists before all else as fire, and fire means the good of love; and the reason why white means truth belonging to faith is that before all else that colour is light, and light means the truth of faith.

'Fire' means the good of love, see 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324, 9434.

'Light' means the truth of faith, 2776, 3195, 3636, 3643, 3993, 4302, 4413, 4415, 5400, 8644, 8707, 8861, 9399, 9407.

'Red' means the good of love, 3300.

'White' means the truth of faith, 3993, 4007, 5319.

[2] From all this it is evident what all other colours mean; for in the measure that they are derived from red they mean good belonging to love, and in the measure that they are derived from white they mean truth belonging to faith. All the colours that appear in heaven are modifications of heavenly light and flame, on those two levels. For heavenly light is real light; and essentially it is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good. Therefore modifications of that light and flame are different variations of truth and good, and so of intelligence and wisdom.

[3] All this now shows how it came about that the veils and curtains of the tent, and also Aaron's garments, were to be woven out of violet, purple, twice-dyed scarlet, and linen thread, Exodus 25:4; 26:31, 36; 27:16; 28:6, 15, namely in order that celestial realities belonging to good and spiritual realities belonging to truth, which are the subject in what follows below, might be represented by them.

[4] Good from a celestial origin is again meant by 'purple' in Ezekiel,

Fine linen with embroidered work from Egypt was your sail; violet and purple from the islands of Elishah was your covering. Ezekiel 27:7.

This refers to Tyre, by which cognitions or knowledge of truth and good are meant. 'Violet and purple covering' stands for cognitions of truth and good from a heavenly origin.

[5] Similar things are meant by 'purple and fine linen' in Luke,

There was a certain rich man (homo) who was clothed in purple and fine linen and indulged in delicacies splendidly every day. Luke 16:19.

'A rich man' is used to mean in the internal sense the Jewish nation, and the Church there, which was said to be 'rich' because of the cognitions or knowledge of good and truth from the Word which existed there. Garments of 'purple and fine linen' are those cognitions, 'of purple' meaning cognitions of good, and 'of fine linen' cognitions of truth, both from a heavenly origin because they come from the Divine. 'Purple' also has a similar meaning in the Book of Revelation,

The woman sitting on a scarlet beast was clothed in purple and scarlet. Revelation 17:3-4.

This refers to Babylon, which means the Church where the holy things of the Word are put to unholy ends, that is, to exercising control in heaven and on earth, and so to ends that spring from hellish self-love and love of the world.