9370. EXODUS 24

1. 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.

2. And Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him.

3. And Moses came and reported to the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.

4. And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

5. And he sent youths of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace sacrifices of bullocks to Jehovah.

6. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it into basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

7. And he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the ears of the people; and they said, All things that Jehovah hath spoken we will do and hear.

8. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah hath made with you upon all these words.

9. And there went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel.

10. And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet as a work of sapphire stone, and as the substance of heaven in respect to cleanness.

11. And unto the sons of Israel who were set apart He sent not His hand: and they saw God, and did eat and drink.

12. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Come up to Me into the mountain, and be thou there; and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law, and the commandment, which I will write to teach them.

13. And Moses rose up, and Joshua his minister; and Moses went up unto the mountain of God.

14. And he said unto the elders, Sit ye here for us, until we return unto you; and behold Aaron and Hur are with you; whosoever hath words, let him come near unto them.

15. And Moses went up unto the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

16. And the glory of Jehovah tarried upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day He called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

17. And the aspect of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the sons of Israel.

18. And Moses entered into the midst of the cloud, and went up unto the mountain; and Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights.

THE CONTENTS.

The subject treated of in the internal sense is the Word given by the Lord through heaven; what is the nature of it; that it is Divine in both senses, the internal and the external; and that through it there is conjunction of the Lord with man.

2016. As regards the fact that all good and the derivative truth are from the Lord: this is a constant verity. The angels are in the perception of it to such a degree that they perceive that insofar as anything is from the Lord, it is good and true, and that insofar as it is from themselves, it is evil and false. They also confess this before novitiate souls, and before spirits who are in doubt of it, nay, they go so far as to say that it is by the Lord that they are withheld from the evil and falsity that come from what is their own, and are kept in good and truth. Moreover the very withholding and the very influx are perceptible to them (see n. 1614). But as to man’s supposing that he does good from himself and thinks truth from himself, this is an appearance, because he is in a state of no perception, and in a state of the greatest obscurity in respect to influx; and therefore he infers this from the appearance, nay, from the fallacy, from which he by no means suffers himself to be withdrawn so long as he has belief in nothing but the senses, and so long as he reasons from them whether it be so. But although the case is as stated, man nevertheless ought to do good and to think truth as from himself; for in no other way can he be reformed and regenerated (the reason of which may be seen above, n. 1937, 1947).

[2] The verse now before us treats of the Lord’s Human Essence that was to be united to the Divine Essence; and that all good and truth would thereby come to man from His Divine Essence through His Human Essence, is a Divine arcanum which few believe, because they do not apprehend it, for they suppose that the Divine good is able to reach to man without the Lord’s Human united to the Divine; but that this cannot be done, has been already shown in a few words (n. 1676, 1990), to this effect, that man has removed himself so far from the Supreme Divine, by the cupidities in which he has immersed himself and by the falsities with which he has blinded himself, that there could not possibly be any influx of the Divine into the rational part of his mind except through the Human which the Lord united in Himself to the Divine. Through His Human, communication has been effected; for thereby the Supreme Divine has been able to come to man. This the Lord says openly in many places, for He says that He is “the way,” and that “no one cometh to the Father but by Him.” This then is what is here affirmed: that from Him, namely, from the Human united to the Divine, is all good and all truth.

6918. And garments. That this signifies lower memory-knowledges corresponding thereto, is evident from the signification of “garments,” as being lower memory-knowledges (see n. 2576, 5248). “Garments” have this signification because they clothe interior things.