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.

10451. 'And the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand' means the Lord's Word specifically and generally. This is clear from the meaning of 'the tablets', on which the Ten Commandments had been inscribed, as the Word in its entirety, dealt with in 9416; and from the meaning of 'the Testimony' as the Lord in respect of Divine Truth, dealt with in 9503. The reason why the Word in its entirety, thus the Word specifically and generally, is meant by those 'tablets' is that the law of life had been inscribed on them, and 'the Law' is used in a restricted sense to mean the Ten Commandments, in a less restricted sense to mean the Word written by Moses, in a broad sense to mean the historical section of the Word, and in the broadest sense to mean the whole Word, see 6752. Also since Mount Sinai, where the Law had been written on those tablets, was a sign of heaven, from which Divine Truth comes, and since Moses represented the Word, which is authentic Divine Truth from the Lord, the presence of the tablets in his hand as he came down served to symbolize that representation.