9373. Come up unto Jehovah. That this signifies conjunction with the Lord, is evident from the signification of “coming up,” as being to be raised toward interior things (see n. 3084, 4539, 4969, 5406, 5817, 6007), consequently also to be conjoined (n. 8760). That it denotes conjunction with the Lord, is because by “Jehovah” in the Word is meant the the Lord, (n. 1343, 1736, 1793, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5663, 6280, 6303, 6905, 8274, 8864, 9315). A secret which also lies hidden in the internal sense of these words, is that the sons of Jacob, over whom Moses was the head, were not called and chosen; but they themselves insisted that Divine worship should be instituted among them (according to wh at has been said in n. 4290, 4293); and therefore it is here said, “and He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah,” as if not Jehovah, but another, had said that he should come up. For the same reason in what follows it is said that “the people should not go up” (verse 2); and that “Jehovah sent not His hand unto the sons of Israel who were set apart” (verse 11); and that “the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the sons of Israel” (verse 17); and lastly that Moses, being called the seventh day, “entered into the midst of the cloud.” For by “the cloud” is meant the Word in the letter (n. 5922, 6343, 6752, 6832, 8106, 8443, 8781); and with the sons of Jacob the Word was separated from its internal sense, because they were in external worship without internal, as can be clearly seen from the fact that now, as before, they said, “all the words which Jehovah hath spoken we will do” (verse 3); and yet scarcely forty days afterward they worshiped a golden calf instead of Jehovah; which shows that this was hidden in their hearts while they were saying with their lips that they would serve Jehovah alone. But nevertheless those who are meant by “the called and the chosen” are those who are in internal worship, and who from internal worship are in external; that is, those who are in love to and faith in the Lord, and from this in love toward the neighbor.

6904. And now let us go we pray a way of three days into the wilderness. That this signifies the life of truth in a state altogether removed from falsities, although in obscurity, is evident from the signification of “going,” as being life (see n. 3335, 4882, 5493, 5605); from the signification of “a way,” as being truth (n. 627, 2333); from the signification of “three days,” as being a full state (n. 2788, 4495), thus when removal from falsities is treated of, it denotes a state altogether removed from them (that “to put a way of three days” denotes to completely separate, see n. 4010); and from the signification of a “wilderness,” as being what is uninhabited and uncultivated (n. 2708, 3900), which in the spiritual sense denotes obscurity of faith. For the subject here treated of is the setting up of a spiritual church, signified by the “sons of Israel;” and they who are of that church are relatively in obscurity in respect to the good and truth of faith (n. 2708, 2715, 2716, 2718, 2831, 2849, 2935, 2937, 3241, 3246, 3833, 4402, 6289, 6500, 6865). The life of truth is the life which they live who are of the spiritual church; for the truth which they know from the Word, or from the doctrine of their church, when it is made of the life, is called good, but it is truth in act.