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.

'Massah and Meribah,' as in Exodus 17:7, signify the qualities of a state of temptation.

(Riferimenti: Arcana Coelestia 8587, 8588)

7602. And the barley. That this signifies its good, is evident from the signification of “barley,” as being the good of the exterior natural. That “barley” has this signification is because it is produce of the field, and is a grain that serves for food; for “grain” in general signifies the good of truth (see n. 3580, 5295, 5410, 5959), especially barley and wheat—“barley,” the good of the exterior natural, and “wheat,” the good of the interior natural. The former good is signified by “barley” in Joel:

The meat-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, have mourned. The field hath been laid waste, the earth hath mourned, because the grain hath been devastated, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. The husbandmen are ashamed, the vinedressers have howled over the wheat and over the barley, because the harvest of the field hath perished (Joel 1:9-11).

The subject of this prophecy is the vastation of good and truth, as is evident from what follows in the chapter; and therefore by “grain,” “new wine,” “wheat,” and “barley,” are not signified these things, but spiritual things; thus by “wheat,” interior good; and by “barley,” exterior good. So with “barley” in Ezekiel 4:9, and in Deuteronomy 8:8. In the book of Judges:

When Gideon was come to the camp, a man was telling a dream to his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo a baked loaf of barley rolled unto the camp of Midian, and came even unto the tent, and smote it that it fell, and turned it upside down, and so the tent fell (Judg. 7:13);

by “Midian” are signified those who are in the truth of simple good, and in the opposite sense those who are not in the good of life (n. 3242, 4756, 4788, 6773). This good is the good of the exterior natural, and is signified by a “loaf of barley;” but the delight of pleasures, if regarded as the end instead of this good, is what is signified by the “baked loaf of barley;” this is the state which the Midianites at that time represented, and which is there described.