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.

We tend to speak somewhat casually of "truth from the Lord," but in actual fact the Lord's truth -- the immediate expression of His infinite love -- is of such brightness and blinding power that it actually is light itself, the light of heaven, bright beyond human imagination, and must be filtered down through multiple levels to a state where we can form it into mental concepts and express it in language. Indeed, this is why the Bible is written with an internal sense; only through such indirect expression can it serve as a container for the real truth that lies hidden within. That brilliance, that overwhelming light from the Lord contained in the Bible, is what "glory" means in the Bible's natural language. That's why it is seen so often in passing, or imagined, or seen within a cloud: We cannot look at it directly.