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Arcana Coelestia #9373

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9373. Come up unto Jehovah. That this signifies conjunction with the Lord, is evident from the signification of “coming up,” as being to be raised toward interior things (see n. 3084, 4539, 4969, 5406, 5817, 6007), consequently also to be conjoined (n. 8760). That it denotes conjunction with the Lord, is because by “Jehovah” in the Word is meant the the Lord, (n. 1343, 1736, 1793, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5663, 6280, 6303, 6905, 8274, 8864, 9315). A secret which also lies hidden in the internal sense of these words, is that the sons of Jacob, over whom Moses was the head, were not called and chosen; but they themselves insisted that Divine worship should be instituted among them (according to wh at has been said in n. 4290, 4293); and therefore it is here said, “and He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah,” as if not Jehovah, but another, had said that he should come up. For the same reason in what follows it is said that “the people should not go up” (verse 2); and that “Jehovah sent not His hand unto the sons of Israel who were set apart” (verse 11); and that “the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the sons of Israel” (verse 17); and lastly that Moses, being called the seventh day, “entered into the midst of the cloud.” For by “the cloud” is meant the Word in the letter (n. 5922, 6343, 6752, 6832, 8106, 8443, 8781); and with the sons of Jacob the Word was separated from its internal sense, because they were in external worship without internal, as can be clearly seen from the fact that now, as before, they said, “all the words which Jehovah hath spoken we will do” (verse 3); and yet scarcely forty days afterward they worshiped a golden calf instead of Jehovah; which shows that this was hidden in their hearts while they were saying with their lips that they would serve Jehovah alone. But nevertheless those who are meant by “the called and the chosen” are those who are in internal worship, and who from internal worship are in external; that is, those who are in love to and faith in the Lord, and from this in love toward the neighbor.

  
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Arcana Coelestia #5569

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5569. As there is a correspondence of the bones and the skins, so there is of the hairs; for these push forth from roots in the skins. Whatever has a correspondence with the Grand Man is possessed by angels and spirits; for each one as an image represents the Grand Man; therefore the angels have hair arranged becomingly and in order. Their hair represents their natural life and its correspondence with their spiritual life. That “hair” signifies the things of natural life, may be seen above (n. 3301); and also that “to poll the hair” is to accommodate natural things so that they may be becoming and thus comely (n. 5247).

  
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Arcana Coelestia #10526

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10526. 'Go! go up from here, you and the people whom you have caused to come up out of the land of Egypt, to the land' means that this nation will represent the Church, but the Church will not reside among them, because they cannot be raised from external things. This is clear from the meaning of 'going up to the land' as in order to establish the Church (for 'the land' in the Word means the Church, see in the places referred to in 9325, and 'going up to it' means establishing it, since it was for that purpose that they were being led or going up towards it), though not establishing the Church, only representing it, is meant here because the interest of that nation lay in external things and not in what was internal, and the Church resides with a person in what is internal with him (the fact that not establishing the Church, only representing the things that constitute the Church is meant here explains why it says, 'Go! go up from here', and also, 'you and the people whom you have caused to come up out of the land of Egypt', thus whom Moses, not Jehovah, caused to come up; and in a subsequent verse, 'I will not go up in your midst, since you are a stiff-necked people', meaning that what is Divine is not among them, and where what is Divine is not received inwardly, no Church exists either, only an outward representation of the Church); and from the meaning of 'causing to come up out of the land of Egypt' as being raised from external things to what is internal, but here not being so raised since it says that Moses caused them to come up and not that Jehovah did so. For this meaning of 'causing to come up out of the land of Egypt', see 10421.

No Church resided among the Israelite nation, only that which was representative of the Church, see 4281, 4288, 4311, 4500, 4899, 4912, 6304, 6704, 9320, and wherever it is spoken of in the previous chapter.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.