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.

7498. 'Go to Pharaoh, and you are to tell him' means the appearance of the truth from God among those engaged in molestation. This is clear from the meaning of 'going (in) to someone' as becoming present or appearing, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'telling' as communication; from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as those who in the next life molest members of the spiritual Church, dealt with in 7107, 7110, 7126, 7142, 7220, 7228, 7317; and from the representation of Moses, who was to go in to Pharaoh and speak to him, as the truth from God, dealt with in 6771, 6827, 7014, 7382. The reason why 'going (in) to' means the presence or appearance is that in the spiritual sense things connected with the mind and therefore with thought are meant, and when 'going (in) to someone is used in reference to thought, it means making that person present in one's thought; for one who thinks about another causes that other to be present in his thought. And what is astonishing, in the next life when one person is thinking about another because he wishes to talk to him, that other becomes present with him. From this it is evident that in these matters there is a similarity between what goes on in the thinking of a person in the world and what takes place visibly in the next life. From all this one may now see that 'going (in) to someone' means the presence or appearance.