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.

9092. Then they shall sell the living ox. That this signifies that the affection of the one which has injured the affection of the other shall be alienated, is evident from the signification of “selling,” as being to alienate (see n. 4098, 4752, 4758, 5886); and from the signification of “the living ox,” as being the affection of truth which had injured the affection of truth of another (of which above, n. 9090).

7689. 'And they devoured every plant in the land' means that it consumed every known fact about truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'devouring' as consuming; and from the meaning of 'a plant in the land' as a known fact about truth. For 'a plant in the field' means a truth that the Church possesses, 7571, because 'the field' is the Church, but 'a plant in the land' means a known fact about truth, because 'the land' here is the natural mind, and truth as it exists in the natural mind is factual knowledge. Furthermore the evil are not in possession of any truth of faith, only of knowledge about the truth of faith. Some evil people within the Church are convinced that they do possess the truth of faith, but they do not; they are ruled by falsity and opposed to the truth of faith. The falsity they are ruled by is deeply hidden within them as long as they are in the world, but that deeply hidden falsity emerges and reveals itself in the next life when they undergo vastation of the truths of faith they had known.