9371. THE INTERNAL SENSE.

Verses 1-2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and bow yourselves afar off; and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him. “And He said unto Moses,” signifies that which concerns the Word in general; “come up unto Jehovah,” signifies conjunction with the Lord; “thou and Aaron,” signifies the Word in the internal sense and the external sense; “Nadab and Abihu,” signifies doctrine from both senses; “and seventy of the elders of Israel,” signifies the chief truths of the church which are of the Word, or of doctrine, and which agree with good; “and bow yourselves afar off,” signifies humiliation and adoration from the heart, and then the influx of the Lord; “and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah,” signifies the conjunction and presence of the Lord through the Word in general; “and they shall not come near,” signifies no separate conjunction and presence; “and the people shall not come up with him,” signifies no conjunction whatever with the external apart from the internal.

2145. He was sitting at the door of the tent. That this signifies the holy which at that time appertained to Him, namely, the holy of love-which is signified by the day growing hot, as explained in what follows-is evident from the signification of a “tent,” as being what is holy (see n. 414, 1102, 1566, where also the reason of this signification of “tents” is explained). As the Lord was then in the perception which is signified by the oak-groves of Mamre, which is a lower rational perception, but yet is a perception more internal than that which is signified by the oak-grove of Moreh (concerning whichsee n. 1442-1443 it is here represented and therefore signified by His sitting at the door of the tent, that is, at the entrance to what is holy. How the case is with perceptions, as being less or more interior, may be illustrated by the perceptions of the most ancient people, from whom I have heard that the more they were in memory-knowledges from the things which are objects of hearing and sight, the lower were their perceptions; but that the more they were uplifted above them to the celestial things of charity and love, the more interior their perceptions were, because they were then nearer to the Lord.