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.

2016. As regards the fact that all good and the derivative truth are from the Lord: this is a constant verity. The angels are in the perception of it to such a degree that they perceive that insofar as anything is from the Lord, it is good and true, and that insofar as it is from themselves, it is evil and false. They also confess this before novitiate souls, and before spirits who are in doubt of it, nay, they go so far as to say that it is by the Lord that they are withheld from the evil and falsity that come from what is their own, and are kept in good and truth. Moreover the very withholding and the very influx are perceptible to them (see n. 1614). But as to man’s supposing that he does good from himself and thinks truth from himself, this is an appearance, because he is in a state of no perception, and in a state of the greatest obscurity in respect to influx; and therefore he infers this from the appearance, nay, from the fallacy, from which he by no means suffers himself to be withdrawn so long as he has belief in nothing but the senses, and so long as he reasons from them whether it be so. But although the case is as stated, man nevertheless ought to do good and to think truth as from himself; for in no other way can he be reformed and regenerated (the reason of which may be seen above, n. 1937, 1947).

[2] The verse now before us treats of the Lord’s Human Essence that was to be united to the Divine Essence; and that all good and truth would thereby come to man from His Divine Essence through His Human Essence, is a Divine arcanum which few believe, because they do not apprehend it, for they suppose that the Divine good is able to reach to man without the Lord’s Human united to the Divine; but that this cannot be done, has been already shown in a few words (n. 1676, 1990), to this effect, that man has removed himself so far from the Supreme Divine, by the cupidities in which he has immersed himself and by the falsities with which he has blinded himself, that there could not possibly be any influx of the Divine into the rational part of his mind except through the Human which the Lord united in Himself to the Divine. Through His Human, communication has been effected; for thereby the Supreme Divine has been able to come to man. This the Lord says openly in many places, for He says that He is “the way,” and that “no one cometh to the Father but by Him.” This then is what is here affirmed: that from Him, namely, from the Human united to the Divine, is all good and all truth.

6007. 'And I will certainly cause you to come up also' means a raising up after that. This is clear from the meaning of 'going up' as a raising up, dealt with in 3084, 4539, 5406, 5817. The raising up meant here is an advance from factual knowledge to more internal ideas. For after such knowledge has been filled with truths in the way stated above in 6004, a person is raised up from it towards more internal ideas; and once that is done the factual knowledge serves him as the groundwork for his contemplations. Being raised up towards more internal ideas is thinking on a more internal level, and at length as spirits and angels do. The more internal the level to which thought rises, the more perfect it becomes because it is closer to the inflow of truth and goodness from the Lord. For thought can exist on more internal or more external levels, 5127, 5141.