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.

3502. And make me dainties, such as I have loved. That this signifies pleasant things from thence, because from good, is evident from the signification of “dainties” as being things pleasant; and because they came from Esau, by whom is represented the good of the natural, therefore they signify things pleasant because from good. In the original language “dainties” signify things that are delightful and pleasing to the taste; and in the internal sense they signify that which is delightful of good, and that which is pleasing of truth, because like the other bodily senses, the taste corresponds to celestial and spiritual things; concerning which correspondence, of the Lord’s Divine mercy hereafter. It cannot be seen how the case herein is unless it is known in what manner the natural is made new, or receives life from the rational, that is, from the Lord through the rational.

[2] The natural does not become new, or receive life corresponding to the rational, that is, is not regenerated, except by means of doctrinal things, or the knowledges of good and truth-the celestial man by the knowledges of good first, but the spiritual man by the knowledges of truth first. Doctrinal things, or the knowledges of good and truth, cannot be communicated to the natural man, thus cannot be conjoined and appropriated, except by means of delights and pleasantnesses accommodated to it, for they are insinuated by an external or sensuous way; and whatever does not enter by some delight or pleasantness does not inhere, thus does not continue.

This is what is meant by the truth of good and the pleasantness thereof, and this is what is treated of in what follows.