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.

8098. 'And God led the people around by the way of the wilderness' means that under Divine guidance they were led by means of temptations to a firm acceptance of the truths and forms of the good of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'God led' as providence, as above in 8093, or what amounts to the same thing, as Divine guidance; and from the meaning of 'by the way of the wilderness' as a way that leads people to undergo temptations and so to reach a firm acceptance of the truths and forms of the good of faith since temptations are the means by which they become firmly accepted. 'The wilderness' means a place which is uninhabited and uncultivated, dealt with in 2708, in the spiritual sense a situation in which there is no good or truth, and also a situation in which truth has not yet been bonded to good. That being so, 'the wilderness' means the state of those with whom the two are to be bonded together; but since the bonding is not accomplished except by means of temptations, these also are meant. Temptations are meant when the number forty is included, which can be forty years, forty months, or forty days. For 'forty' means temptations and their duration, however long that may be, 730, 862, 2272, 2273. These things are meant by the travels of the children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years; the temptations they underwent are also described. The fact that they were led into the wilderness to undergo temptations and in so doing to represent them is evident from the following words in Moses,

You shall remember all the way in which Jehovah your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order that He might afflict you, in order that He might tempt you, in order that He might know what is in your heart. He fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, in order that He might afflict you, in order that He might tempt you, to do good to you in your descendants. Deuteronomy 8:2, 16.

Because 'forty' meant temptations and their durations, and 'the wilderness' meant the states of people undergoing them, the Lord too, when He was tempted, went out into the wilderness and was there for forty days, Matthew 4:1-2, and following verses; Luke 4:1-2, and following verses; Mark 1:12-13.