10290. 'And Jehovah said to Moses' means enlightenment and perception once again from the Lord through the Word. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying', when it refers to Jehovah, as enlightenment and perception (for its meaning enlightenment, see 7019, 10215, 10234, and for its meaning perception, 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, 2080, 2862, 3509, 5877); and from the representation of 'Moses' as the Word, dealt with in 6752, 7014, 7089, 'Jehovah' in the Word being the Lord, see in the places referred to in 9373. From all this it is evident that 'Jehovah said to Moses' means enlightenment and perception from the Lord through the Word.

[2] These things are meant because the Lord speaks to a member of the Church in no other way than through the Word; for when He does so He sheds light to enable the person to see the truth, and also provides perception to enable him to perceive it to be such. How far He does so however is determined by the nature of the person's desire for truth, and that desire is determined by his love. Those who love truth for truth's sake possess enlightenment, and those who love truth for goodness' sake have perception. What perception is, see 483, 495, 521, 536, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1919, 2144, 2145, 2171, 2515, 2831, 5228, 5920, 7680, 7977, 8780. But the Lord spoke to Moses and the prophets by word of mouth, to the end that the Word might be disseminated, its nature being such that every detail had an inner meaning. This also is the reason why these words, Jehovah said to Moses, are used. The angels, who discern that inner meaning, have no awareness of Moses, for the names of persons do not pass into heaven, 10282. Instead of Moses they perceive the Word, while the verb 'to say' is with them converted into something congruous with it, thus in this instance into 'to be enlightened' and 'to perceive'. Nothing else furthermore is understood, in the angelic way of thinking, by 'saying' or 'speaking' when done by the Lord through the Word.

536. Frequent reference has been made in previous paragraphs to perception as it existed in the Churches prior to the Flood, and how nowadays perception is something altogether unknown, so unknown that some may imagine it to be a type of continuous revelation, or to be something innate in people. Others may imagine that it is purely a figment of the imagination, and others something different again. But whatever they may think, perception is in fact the celestial itself which the Lord imparts to those who possess faith that inheres in love, and throughout the whole of heaven perception exists in forms endlessly varying. All of this being so, to enable people to have some idea of what perception is, in the Lord's Divine mercy let the nature of the various kinds of perception as they exist in heaven be described later on.