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.

6971. 'And do not hear the voice of the former sign' means that if they did not obey what was declared by the Word, then instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing' as obeying, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 5017; from the meaning of 'the voice' as what is declared by the Word, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the former sign' as an indication that instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. The truth of this may be seen from the meaning of 'the serpent' that was made out of Moses' rod when it was thrown onto the earth - the event to which 'the first sign' refers here - as a person who thinks on a sensory and bodily level, 6949, and so is not spiritual or rational. For a person who is sensory- and bodily-minded is not rational, and so is not spiritual either, because he thinks things that are false and desires those that are evil. One who behaves like this is not rational, still less spiritual, for an acceptance of and belief in what is true, together with a life of goodness, since these two come from the Divine, constitute true spirituality within rationality, whereas an acceptance of and belief in what is false, together with a life of evil, are the opposite. For the fact that wholly sensory- and bodily-minded people are like this, see 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949.

[2] Those people become wholly sensory- and bodily-minded who have first had a knowledge of things that belong to the spiritual world but after that have rejected them, and then have adopted fundamental ideas of falsity that are contrary to truths and focused their lives solely on worldly, bodily, and earthly values. They have consequently come to believe that life is meant to be filled with pleasures of every kind, saying, 'What more does a person have while he is alive? When we die, we die; as for the possibility of life after death, has anyone ever come back to talk about it? We have no knowledge of anything that will go on living when the life goes out of a person.' If anyone using rational arguments induces those people to give any thought to eternal life, they think that nothing worse will happen to them than to anyone else, and they immediately go back to living in the way they had done previously. With such people the passageway for the light of heaven to flow in is closed, and at the natural level of their minds the light of heaven is turned into thick darkness, while the light of the world there becomes brightness, 6907, a brightness that shines ever more brilliantly, the more that the light of heaven is darkened. This is why such people do not see the evil in their lives as anything other than goodness, or consequently the false ideas as anything other than true. Here then is the reason why a person becomes sensory- and bodily-minded. In short, once the way is opened for the light of heaven to flow in and then closed, a person is impelled to look downwards, and not upwards. This is done in keeping with Divine order so as to prevent truths once accepted and remaining in a person's inner self from being contaminated by falsities and thereby rendered profane.

[3] The same applies to gentiles who fall away from their religion, though their lot is better than that of people within the Church since what they possess are not truths from the Word, not genuine truths therefore but truths coupled with many misconceptions, which cannot be profaned in the way genuine ones can.

As regards the meaning of 'the voice' as that which is declared by the Word, it should be recognized that frequent use is made of the expression 'the voice'. It is also linked to other things that have nothing to do with a voice, such as the linking of it here to 'the sign' - 'If they do not hear the voice of the former sign they will believe the voice of the latter sign' - and also elsewhere, for example in Nahum,

The voice of the whip and the voice of the sound of the wheel. Nahum 3:2.

And in David,

The rivers have lifted up their voice, more than the voices of many mighty waters. Psalms 93:3-4.

[4] The fact that 'the voice' means a declaration, in the good sense a declaration by the Word, when it is called 'the voice of Jehovah', is clear in David,

The voice of Jehovah is powerful; the voice of Jehovah is glorious; the voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars; the voice of Jehovah flashes forth flames of fire; the voice of Jehovah causes the wilderness to shake; the voice of Jehovah causes the hinds to calve, and strips the forests bare. Psalms 29:3-5; Psalms 7-9.

And elsewhere in the same author,

. . . to Him who rides above the heavens of heavens of old. Behold, He will put forth His voice, a mighty voice. Psalms 68:33.

Here 'voice' stands for Divine Truth, and so for the Word and a declaration made by it. For what more is meant by 'voice', see 219; and for its use in reference to truth, 3563.