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.

7439. Let My people go, that they may serve Me. That this signifies that they should release those who are of the spiritual church in order that they may worship their God in freedom, is evident from the signification of “letting go,” as being to release; from the representation of the sons of Israel, here “My people,” as being those who are of the spiritual church (n. 6426, 6637, 6862, 6868, 7035, 7062, 7198, 7201, 7215, 7223); and from the signification of “serving Jehovah,” as being to worship. That they should worship in freedom is plain from what follows (verses 21-23), and also from the fact that all worship which is truly worship must be in freedom.

[2] The sons of Israel being called “the people of Jehovah” was not because they were better than other nations, but because they represented the people of Jehovah, that is, those who are of the Lord’s spiritual kingdom. That they were not better than other nations is plain from their life in the wilderness, in that they did not at all believe in Jehovah, but in their hearts believed in the gods of the Egyptians, as is evident from the golden calf which they made for themselves, and which they called their gods who had brought them forth out of the land of Egypt (Exodus 32:8). The same is evident also from their subsequent life in the land of Canaan, as described in the historicals of the Word, and from what was said of them by the prophets, and finally from what was said of them by the Lord.

[3] For this reason also few of them are in heaven, for they have received their lot in the other life according to their life. Therefore do not believe that they were elected to heaven in preference to others; for whoever so believes, does not believe that everyone’s life remains with him after death, nor that man must be prepared for heaven by his whole life in the world, and that this is done of the Lord’s mercy, and that none are admitted into heaven from mercy alone, regardless of how they have lived in the world. Such an opinion about heaven and the Lord’s mercy is induced by the doctrine of faith alone, and of salvation by faith alone without good works; for those who hold this doctrine have no concern about the life, and so believe that evils can be washed away like dirt by water, and thus that man can in a moment pass into the life of good, and consequently be admitted into heaven. For they do not know that if the life of evil were taken away from the evil, they would have no life whatever, and that if they who are in a life of evil were admitted into heaven, they would feel hell in themselves, and this the more grievously, the more interiorly they were admitted into heaven.

[4] From all this it can now be seen that the Israelites and Jews were by no means elected, but only accepted to represent the things that belong to heaven; and that this must needs be done in the land of Canaan, because the Lord’s church had been there from the most ancient times, and from this all the places there became representative of heavenly and Divine things. In this way also the Word could be written, and the names in it could signify such things as belong to the Lord and His kingdom.

7217. 'For shortness of breath' means because of the state in which they were close to despair. This is clear from the meaning of 'shortness of breath' as a state in which a person is close to despair; for those passing through that state experience shortness of breath. ¹ That state is meant by the burden which Pharaoh placed on the children of Israel - to gather their own straw to make bricks - as shown at the end of the previous chapter. The fact that 'shortness of breath' means a state in which a person is close to despair may be recognized from the consideration that those passing through this kind of state suffer inward distress and at the same time actual shortness of breath. In the external sense 'shortness of breath' is a tight feeling around the chest and an apparent inability to breathe properly. But in the internal sense it is distress caused by being deprived of the truth of faith and the good of charity, and is consequently a state close to despair. A feeling of tightness and the distress caused by being deprived of the truth of faith and the good of charity go with each other as natural effect in the body produced by spiritual cause in the mind, as may be seen from what has been shown in 97, 1119, 3886, 3887, 3889, 3892, 3893.

[2] Those without any faith or charity are unable to believe that the deprivation of spiritual truth and good gives rise to such distress and consequently such shortness of breath. They suppose that anyone who feels distress on account of that deprivation must be weak in the head and mentally ill; and the reason why they suppose this is that they see nothing real in faith and charity, or thus in the things that belong to their souls and those that belong to heaven; for them only wealth and prominence, thus things belonging to the body and the world possess any reality. They also think, 'What are faith and charity? Are they not mere words? And what indeed is conscience? Feeling distressed on account of these is feeling distressed on account of the kinds of things that insane imagination causes a person to suppose to be something when in fact they are nothing. But what wealth and prominence are, we can see with our eyes and feel with pleasure that they really exist, for they swell the body and fill it with joy.' This is how people who are wholly natural think and talk to one another. But those who are spiritual think in a different way; for them the life in their spirit is primary, thus the life in the things that belong to the spirit, which are faith and charity. Therefore when they think that they are being deprived of the truths and forms of good that compose faith and charity they suffer agony like those undergoing the throes of death, for they see spiritual death, that is, damnation, before them. As stated above, these people are seen by those who are wholly natural to be soft in the head and ill in mind or spirit. But they are sound in the head and healthy in mind, whereas those who are wholly natural see themselves as being sound and healthy, as indeed they are physically. But they are completely unhealthy in spirit, because spiritually they are dead. If they saw what their spirit was like they would acknowledge this; but they do not see it until after the death of their body.

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