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.

5249. And came unto Pharaoh. That this signifies communication with the new natural, is evident from the signification of “coming,” as here being communication by influx; and from the representation of Pharaoh, as being the new natural (see n. 5079, 5080, 5244). What the words in this verse involve is manifest from what has been unfolded, for they treat of Joseph, how he was freed from the pit and came unto Pharaoh. By Joseph in the internal sense is represented the Lord as to the celestial of the spiritual, and by Pharaoh is represented the natural or external man; by the pit in which Joseph was is represented the state of the Lord’s temptation as to the celestial of the spiritual; and by his being called from the pit by Pharaoh is signified the state of deliverance from temptations, and further, the subsequent state of influx and communication with the new natural. From this it is plain that in the internal sense is here described how the Lord made His natural new, and at last Divine.

[2] These are the things the celestial angels think when this history is being read by man; moreover, to think such things is to them most delightful, for they are in the Lord’s Divine sphere, thus as it were in the Lord, and in a perception of inmost joy when thinking of the Lord and of the salvation of the human race by the Lord’s making Divine the Human in Him; and in order that the angels might be kept in this most heavenly joy, and at the same time in wisdom, that Divine process is fully described in the internal sense of the Word, and at the same time therein the process of man’s regeneration; for the regeneration of man is an image of the Lord’s glorification (n. 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490, 4402). Some may possibly wonder what the angels converse together about, and consequently what men who become angels converse about after death; but be it known to them that it is about such things as are contained in the internal sense of the Word, namely, about the Lord’s glorification, His kingdom, the church, the regeneration of man through the good of love and the truth of faith; but they speak about these things by means of secret things that are for the most part inexpressible.

6918. 'And clothes' means inferior factual knowledge corresponding to these. This is clear from the meaning of 'clothes' as inferior factual knowledge, dealt with in 2576, 5248. 'Clothes' has this meaning because they envelop more internal things.