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.

3317. And Esau came from the field. That this signifies the pursuit of the good of life, is evident from the representation of Esau, as being the good of life of natural truth (concerning which see n. 3300); and from the signification of “coming from the field,” as being the pursuit of good; for meditating in the field denotes cogitating in good (n. 3196), because a “field” denotes the good of the church (n. 2971).

8787. 'Go to the people' means a joining together. This is clear from the representation now of 'Moses' as the truth from God which was below heaven, dealt with above in 8760; and from the representation of the children of Israel, to whom 'the people' to whom he was to go refers here, as those belonging to the spiritual Church, dealt with often. The reason why 'go to the people', when said by Jehovah, means a joining together is that the truth from God, represented by 'Moses', is the intermediary between the Divine and those belonging to the Church; for in order that the joining together represented here by the covenant between Jehovah and the people may take place an intermediary must be present. Therefore also 'Moses' represents the truth from God below heaven joined to God's truth in heaven, 8760, so joined in order to serve as an intermediary.