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.

6304. And shall bring you back unto the land of your fathers. That this signifies to the state of both Ancient Churches, is evident from the signification of “land,” as being the church (see n. 566, 662, 1066, 1067, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118, 3355, 4535, 4447, 5577); and from the signification of “fathers,” as being the men of the Ancient and Most Ancient Churches (n. 6075). It is said “to the state of both Ancient Churches,” because the sons of Israel and their descendants, like those who belonged to the Ancient Churches, in every particular represented the Lord’s kingdom, celestial and spiritual. The representative itself was also instituted; with the Jewish nation that of the celestial kingdom, and with the Israelitish that of the spiritual kingdom; but with that generation nothing but a mere representative could be instituted, and not anything of the church or kingdom of the Lord; for they desired to see and acknowledge in the representatives absolutely nothing but what was external, and not anything internal. Nevertheless in order that there might exist a representative, and thereby some communication with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord, they were kept in externals; and it was then provided by the Lord that communication should exist by means of a mere external representative without an internal. This was the state to which the descendants of Jacob could be brought back; nevertheless in their external representatives there lay inwardly hidden Divine things; in the highest sense such as regarded the Lord’s Divine Human; and in the relative sense such as regarded the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens, and the church. This state of both Ancient Churches is signified by the words, “God shall bring you back unto the land of your fathers.”

7693. In the whole land of Egypt. That this signifies on all sides in the natural, is evident from the signification of “the land of Egypt,” as being the natural mind, thus the natural ((7674) see n. 7674). As by the “locust,” which is the subject here treated of, is signified falsity in the extremes, that is, in the sensuous of man, it must here be told what the sensuous is, so that it may be known what falsity in the extremes is. The sensuous man, or he who thinks and acts from the sensuous, is he who believes nothing except what is obvious to the outward senses, and who is led solely by the bodily appetites, by pleasures, and by concupiscences, and not by reasons, believing those to be reasons which favor such things. Such being the sensuous man, he therefore rejects everything internal, until at last he is not willing even to hear it mentioned; consequently at heart he denies whatever is of heaven; the life after death he certainly does not believe in, because he makes life to consist solely in the body, and therefore he supposes that he himself will die like a beast. He thinks as it were in the surface, that is, in the ultimates or in the extremes, and is quite ignorant of the existence of an interior thought according to the perception of truth and good. The reason why he does not know this, nor even that there is an internal man, is because his interiors look downward to the things of the world, of the body, and of the earth, with which they make a one; consequently they have been removed from looking upward, or to heaven, because they look in the opposite direction. To look upward, or to heaven, is not to think about the things that belong to heaven, but it is to have these things as the end, that is, to love them more than all other things; for a man’s interiors turn to where his love turns, and consequently so does his thought. From all this it can be seen what is the nature of man’s sensuous, that is, of his natural in the extremes; for that man is called sensuous who thinks from what is sensuous.