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.

905. Go forth from the ark. That this signifies freedom, is evident from what has been said before, and from the connection itself of the context. So long as Noah was in the ark and surrounded with the waters of the flood, the signification was that he was in captivity, that is, he was tossed about by evils and falsities, or what is the same thing, by evil spirits, from whom is the combat of temptation. Hence it follows that to “go forth from the ark” signifies freedom. The presence of the Lord involves freedom, the one following the other. The more present the Lord, the more free the man; that is, the more a man is in the love of good and truth, the more freely he acts. Such is the influx of the Lord through the angels. But on the other hand, the influx of hell through evil spirits is forcible, and impetuous, striving to dominate; for such spirits breathe nothing but the utter subjugation of the man, so that he may be nothing, and that they may be everything; and when they are everything the man is one of them, and scarcely even that, for in their eyes he is a mere nobody. Therefore when the Lord is liberating the man from their dominion and from their yoke there arises a combat; but when the man has been liberated, that is, regenerated, he, through the ministry of angels, is led by the Lord so gently that there is nothing whatever of yoke or of dominion, for he is led by means of his delights and his happinesses, and is loved and esteemed. This is what the Lord teaches in Matthew:

My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Matthew 11:30), and is the reverse of a man’s state when under the yoke of evil spirits, who, as just said, account the man as nothing, and, if they were able, would torment him every moment. This it has been given me to know by much experience, concerning which, of the Lord’s Divine mercy hereafter.