8928. 'And Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was' means a joining even of the truth of spiritual good to God's truth. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses' as God's truth below heaven joined to God's truth in heaven, consequently an intermediary kind of truth - dealt with in 8760, 8787, 8805 - thus the truth of spiritual good (for such truth is God's truth below heaven, which exists with the spiritual Church represented by the children of Israel; and Moses as the head of that Church represents this truth, 7014); from the meaning of 'drawing near' as a joining together, for drawing near the Divine is being joined to Him; and from the meaning of 'the thick darkness' as God's truth as it exists with those who belong to the spiritual Church, and also as it existed with that people whom Moses was set over as leader. The reason why God's truth is 'thick darkness' to both these is that neither of them is in any light as regards God's truths.

[2] Let those who belong to the spiritual Church be dealt with first. Those who belong to it believe that they are in the light. Yet they are in obscurity, indeed in thick darkness, so far as God's truth is concerned, as is clear from the consideration that they have no inner perception enabling them to see whether what the Church says is indeed the truth; they know it to be such only because the Church says it. What the Church says they firmly accept, whether it is false or true. And anyone devoid of any inner perception to see God's truth is in thick darkness, or what amounts to the same thing, Divine Truth is for him thick darkness. Members of the spiritual Church do not know for example, and have no wish to know, of the existence of an internal sense in the Word; and if they do perhaps come to believe in its existence there, it will not be because they perceive it for themselves but because of some other influence inducing them to believe it.

[3] Members of the spiritual Church, to take another example, say that faith is the one and only means of salvation, even without charity and the good deeds of charity. They believe this because the Church says it. They do not arrive at that light of perception in which they may see for themselves that faith does not exist except where charity does, or that the one belongs to the other as one person does to another in marriage, and therefore that charity is the essential element of the Church, because of its coherence with good. This also shows what obscurity or thick darkness the spiritual Church is in. And being in such darkness they divide the Church into many different Churches, as many as the variant doctrines presenting the truths of faith, a situation which would never arise if they were in the light. For one who is in the light never doubts, skill less denies that love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour are the essential elements of the Church, or that all the truths which the Word contains, consequently all the truths of faith, are founded on them. He likewise never doubts any of the other truths which hang on this law and are called the truths of faith. But these matters have been shown more plainly in 2708, 2715, 2831, 2849, 2935, 2937, 3241, 3246, 6289, 6427, 6865, 6945, 7233. Those who belong to the spiritual Church do not arrive at even the outermost threshold of the wisdom or of the light in which those are who belong to the celestial Church, 2718, 3833, 6500.

[4] The second reason why it says that Moses entered thick darkness when he drew near God is that as their leader 'Moses' represented the Israelite and Jewish people, who were in darkness regarding internal truths, so thick that they were totally ignorant of them; for they considered all of worship and everything Divine to consist in external things. This is why the Divine was for them thick darkness; for as everyone well knows, the Divine never dwells in thick darkness but in light, since the Divine is light itself. When therefore the Divine is called 'thick darkness', it describes what He is so far as those who do not dwell in any light are concerned; for Divine Truths which compose the light of heaven do not appear to them to be anything else than such darkness, because they do not believe them, indeed they deny them. How the Divine appears to anyone is determined by the essential nature of the person's life and faith. Consequently He appears as light to those who are in the light, and as thick darkness to those who are in thick darkness. The fact that the Israelite and Jewish people were such, see 3479, 3769, 4281, 4293, 4307, 4314, 4316, 4433, 4680, 4825, 4832, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4903, 6304, and that the Lord on Mount Sinai appeared to them in smoke, cloud, and thick darkness, in keeping with the essential nature of that people, 1861 (end), 6832, 8814, 8819.

3478. To some there was also represented the tabernacle with the ark, for to those who, when they lived in the world, have taken very great delight in the Word such things are presented to them visually. So on the occasion referred to they saw the tabernacle with all its furnishings; that is to say, they saw its courts, its curtains round about, its veils inside, the golden altar or altar of incense, the table where the loaves were placed, the lampstand, and the mercy-seat with the cherubim. At the same time these upright spirits were allowed to perceive what each particular thing meant. It was the three heavens that were represented by the tabernacle, and the Lord Himself by the testimony inside the ark, above which there was the mercy-seat. And to the extent their sight was opened they saw within those objects more heavenly and Divine things, of which they had had no knowledge at all during their lifetime. And what was amazing, every least thing there, even every hook or ring, was representative. Consider merely the bread placed on the table. Within this as within a representative and symbol they perceived the food on which angels live, and so perceived celestial and spiritual love together with all the bliss and happiness that the angels enjoy. And within that love, also that bliss and happiness, they perceived the Lord Himself as the bread or manna from heaven. They perceived more besides from the shape, position, and number of the loaves, and from the gold which was around them, and from the lampstand which lit up those things and displayed further representations of things that are indescribable. The same was so with everything else in the tabernacle. From all this one might also see that the religious observances or the representatives of the Jewish Church contained all the arcana of the Christian Church, and also that those to whom the representatives and meaningful signs of the Old Testament Word are disclosed are able, while living in the world, to know and perceive the arcana which belong to the Lord's Church on earth. And when they enter the next life they are able to know and perceive the arcana of arcana which belong to the Lord's kingdom in heaven.