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.

1672. And the kings that were with him. That this signifies the apparent truth which is of that good, is evident from the signification of “kings” in the Word. “Kings,” “kingdoms,” and “peoples,” in the historical and the prophetical parts of the Word, signify truths and the things which are of truths, as may be abundantly confirmed. In the Word an accurate distinction is made between a “people” and a “nation;” by a “people” are signified truths, and by a “nation” goods, as before shown (n. 1259, 1260). “Kings” are predicated of peoples, but not so much of nations. Before the sons of Israel sought for kings, they were a nation, and represented good, or the celestial; but after they desired a king, and received one, they became a people, and did not represent good or the celestial, but truth or the spiritual; which was the reason why this was imputed to them as a fault (see 1 Samuel 8:7-22, concerning which subject, of the Lord’s Divine mercy elsewhere). As Chedorlaomer is named here, and it is added, “the kings that were with him,” both good and truth are signified; by “Chedorlaomer,” good, and by “the kings,” truth. But what was the quality of the good and truth at the beginning of the Lord’s temptations has already been stated.

4121. 'And he took his brothers with him' means forms of good replacing those which it had lost. This is clear from the meaning of 'brothers' as forms of good, dealt with in 2360, 3160, 3303, 3459, 3803, 3815. In the internal sense 'brothers' means people who are governed by the same kind of goodness and truth, that is, they share the same affection for these. Indeed all in the next life are grouped together in different communities on the basis of their affections; and those so grouped together in any community constitute a brotherhood. They do so not because they call themselves brothers but because they are such through their being joined to one another. In the next life it is goodness and truth that lie behind that which on earth is called a blood-relationship and a relationship by marriage, and for this reason the latter correspond to that goodness and truth. Indeed regarded in themselves forms of goodness and truth acknowledge no other father than the Lord, for they exist from Him alone, and therefore all who are governed by forms of goodness and truth exist in a brotherly relationship with one another. Yet degrees of affinity exist, determined by the particular nature of each form of goodness or truth. In the Word these degrees are meant by brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandsons, granddaughters, and many other names for relatives in a family.

[2] On earth however these names are given to people because they have the same parents, no matter how much these people differ from one another in affection. But that kind of brotherly relationship and affinity is dissolved in the next life, and unless on earth they have been governed by the same affection they all enter different brotherly relationships. Such people, it is true, do as a general rule come together initially, but in a short while they are parted. For in the next life it is not money that holds people together but, as has been stated, affections, the nature of which are plain to see as if in clear daylight, as also is the nature of the affection which one person has had for another. Since affections are so plain to see there, and since everyone's affection attracts him towards the community that is his, the association with one another of people whose mental dispositions have not been in agreement is therefore broken. In that case all ties of brotherly relationship and of friendship possessed by the external man are eliminated in both parties, while those which had existed with the internal man remain. The reason why 'he took his brothers with him' means forms of good replacing those which it had lost is that when one community is being separated from another, as stated above in 4077, 4110, 4111, it moves towards another and so towards other forms of good which replace the former.