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.

1672. And the kings that were with him. That this signifies the apparent truth which is of that good, is evident from the signification of “kings” in the Word. “Kings,” “kingdoms,” and “peoples,” in the historical and the prophetical parts of the Word, signify truths and the things which are of truths, as may be abundantly confirmed. In the Word an accurate distinction is made between a “people” and a “nation;” by a “people” are signified truths, and by a “nation” goods, as before shown (n. 1259, 1260). “Kings” are predicated of peoples, but not so much of nations. Before the sons of Israel sought for kings, they were a nation, and represented good, or the celestial; but after they desired a king, and received one, they became a people, and did not represent good or the celestial, but truth or the spiritual; which was the reason why this was imputed to them as a fault (see 1 Samuel 8:7-22, concerning which subject, of the Lord’s Divine mercy elsewhere). As Chedorlaomer is named here, and it is added, “the kings that were with him,” both good and truth are signified; by “Chedorlaomer,” good, and by “the kings,” truth. But what was the quality of the good and truth at the beginning of the Lord’s temptations has already been stated.

1053. That 'and the bow will be in the cloud' means the state of that man is clear from what has been stated and shown already about the bow in the cloud, that is to say, in the next life a person or soul is known among angels from his sphere; and as often as it pleases the Lord that sphere is represented by means of colours like those of the rainbow, variously according to each person's state as to faith in the Lord and thus respectively as to goods and truths of faith. In the next life colours present themselves to view, which on account of their brilliance and splendour are immensely superior in beauty to colours seen with the eyes on earth. Each colour represents something celestial or spiritual.

[2] Those colours derive from the light in heaven, and from the variegation of spiritual light, as stated above. Indeed angels live in light so bright that the light of the world is in comparison no light at all. The light of heaven in which angels live, compared with the light of the world, is as the light of the sun at midday to the light of a candle that is put out and ceases to give any light at all when the sun rises. In heaven there is celestial light and there is spiritual light. Let me compare the two by saying that celestial light is as the light of the sun, while spiritual light is as the light of the moon. But all manner of variation exists depending on the state of the angel receiving the light. The same applies to colours since they are a product of the light. In the heaven of celestial angels the Lord Himself is the Sun, and in the heaven of spiritual angels the Moon. To people who have no conception of the life which souls lead after death these matters are unbelievable. They are nevertheless completely true.