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.

491. The same things are signified by “sons” and “daughters” in this chapter (verses 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, 30), but such as is the church, such are the “sons and daughters” that is, such are the goods and truths; the truths and goods here spoken of are such as were distinctly perceived, because they are predicated of the Most Ancient Church, the principal and parent of all the other and succeeding churches.

7796. 'And Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh' means that these stages of vastation, and the consequent corroborations that they are ruled by evil, were brought about by the truth emanating from God. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses and Aaron' as God's truth, 'Moses' truth that emanates directly from God, and 'Aaron' that which does so indirectly, dealt with in 7010, 7089, 7382; and from the meaning of 'the wonders' performed in Egypt or belonging to the Church who have led an evil life. The fact that those things are depicted by the wonders of Egypt may be recognized from the meaning of each wonder. And for the fact that they also depict corroborations that those people do not have faith but are ruled by evil, see immediately above in 7795. It says that 'Moses and Aaron performed these wonders', when in fact they were not Performed by them but by God. But what happened has been stated in that way because God's truth is represented by 'Moses and Aaron', and the wonders were performed by God through the truth emanating from Himself, since all that God Himself performs is performed through the truth emanating from Him. God Himself is the Being (Esse) of all things, but the truth emanating from Him is the Coming-into-Being (Existere) of all things, which rises out of His Being. Good itself, which is God's Being (Esse), brings forth all things by means of its Truth. It is said that the stages of vastation were brought about by the truth emanating from God; but it should be understood that Divine Truth is not the cause of them since God subjects no one to vastation. Rather, an evil person subjects himself to it through obstinate opposition to God's truth by eliminating, rejecting, or perverting it, and through turning God's goodness, which flows in unceasingly, into evil. This then is what subjects him to vastation; and from this it is evident where the cause of it lies, not in the inflow of goodness and truth from God - for unless they inflow life is non-existent - but in their conversion to evil and falsity, committed by the person who is ruled by evil.