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.

9160. 'The case of both parties shall come even to God, and the one whom God condemns' means enquiry made and decision reached through truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'the case shall come even to God' as enquiry made through truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'condemning' as reaching a decision and sentencing the one who transgressed. The reason why 'the case shall come even to God' means enquiry made through truth is that 'to God' implies to the judges who were to enquire into the matter in the light of truth. This also explains the use of the plural in 'the one whom God condemns'. ¹ In the original language God is indeed called El, which is singular, but more often Elohim, which is plural, and the reason for this is that among the angels in heaven the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord is divided into a multitude of different forms. For as many as the angels are, so many are the recipients of God's truth, each one receiving it in their own way, 3241, 3744-3746, 3986, 4149, 5598, 7236, 7833, 7836. This explains why the angels are called gods, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8301, and also judges, because judges were not to base their judgements on any ideas of their own but on those which were the Lord's. They were also to base judgements on the Law of Moses, thus on the Word received from the Lord. At the present day also judgements are based on what is the Lord's when they accord with truths and spring from conscience.

[2] The Lord is called 'God' in the Word by virtue of Divine Truth that emanates from Him, and 'Jehovah' by virtue of Divine Good, 4402, 6303, 6905, 7268, 8988. For this reason wherever good is the subject in the Word the name 'Jehovah' is used, and wherever truth is the subject the name 'God' is used, 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921 (end), 4402, 7268, 8988; and so 'God' means truth, 4287, 7010, 7268. All this now shows what is meant in verse 8 by 'if the thief is not caught, the master of the house shall be brought to God', and in the present verse by 'the case of both parties shall come even to God, and the one whom God condemns shall repay', as well as what is meant by 'God' in the following places,

Aaron will speak for you to the people; and it will happen, that he will be for you as a mouth, and you will be for him as God. Exodus 4:16.

'Moses' is Divine Truth or the Law, and 'as a mouth' is the teachings drawn from it that Aaron represented, see 7010. Also,

Jehovah said to Moses, See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. Exodus 7:1.

See 7268. And in the first Book of Samuel,

Formerly in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, he said this, Come, and we will go to the seer. For one called a prophet at the present day was formerly called a seer. 1 Samuel 9:9.

'A seer' or 'a prophet' is God's truth, and teachings based on it regarding truth and good, 2534, 7269.

Footnotes:

4149. 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' means that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good. This is clear from the meaning of 'gods' which in this case are the teraphim, as truths, dealt with in 4111, not however the truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but to the affection which 'Rachel' represents. It is because those truths are meant by 'gods' here that the reference to Rachel's having stolen them is added. And more concerning them appears further on which would not have been recorded if that deed of hers had not entailed arcana which are evident solely in the internal sense. And because the truths under discussion here were not truths belonging to the good meant by 'Laban' but those belonging to the affection for truth which 'Rachel' represents, the words 'Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live in the presence of our brothers' therefore mean that that truth was not 'Laban's', and that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his - 'Jacob's' - good.

[2] The implication of this arcanum is that all spiritual good has its own truths, for wherever that good exists truths are present also. Regarded in itself good is a single whole, but it is made various by means of truths. Indeed truths may be compared to the fibres which compose some organ of the body. It is the form which these fibres take that determines the nature of the organ and therefore of its function. And this - that is to say, its function - is dependent on the life which flows in through the soul, a life that comes from good which originates in the Lord. So although good is a single whole it nevertheless varies with each individual; it is so varying that it is never exactly the same with one person as with another. This also is why one person's truth cannot possibly abide in another person's good. For all the truths residing with someone in whom good is present intercommunicate and produce some form or other. For this reason one person's truth cannot be transferred to another, for when it is transferred it passes into the form that is peculiar to the recipient and takes on a different appearance. But this arcanum demands exploration which is too deep to enable it to be revealed in just a few words. This explains why the mind of one person is never exactly like another's, but that the differences in people's affections and ways of thinking are as numerous as the people themselves. It also explains why the whole of heaven consists of angelic forms which are endlessly varying. Arranged by the Lord into the form heaven takes, those forms act as a single whole. For no single whole is ever composed of parts that are identical but of those that are various existing in a single form and which make one in keeping with that form. This now shows what is meant by the statement that what was 'Laban's' truth could not reside in his own - 'Jacob's' - good.