414. And who is able to stand? signifies, who shall sustain and live? This is evident from the signification of standing, when it is before the Lord, as meaning to sustain and live, here, not able to sustain it and live; for, as was said above, the evil, from the influx and consequent presence of the Lord, that is, of Divine good and Divine truth going out and proceeding from Him with power and might, come not only into the tremors from fear, but also into torments from interior conflict, consequently unless they flee away and cast themselves down they cannot live, for from fear and torment death as it were befalls them, for the presence of the Divine brings death to the evil as it brings life to the good. From this their state it is then said, "Who is able to stand?" As also in Malachi:

Who sustaineth the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He shall appear (Malachi 3:2)?

In Nahum:

Who shall stand before His indignation; and who shall stand up in the glow of His anger (Nahum 1:6)?

And in Joel:

The day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who shall sustain it? (Joel 2:11).

Moreover, "to stand," like walking and sitting, in the Word signifies to be and to live; and "to stand," has a similar meaning with to stand firm and stand still. As in Luke:

The angel answered Zachariah, I am Gabriel, that standeth before God (Luke 1:19).

And in the same:

Be wakeful at every season, that ye may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:36).

And elsewhere. And as "to stand" also signifies to be, it is said of Jehovah, in Isaiah:

Jehovah hath stood up to plead, and standeth to judge (Isaiah 3:13).

And in David:

God stood in the congregation of God; He shall judge in the midst of the gods (Psalms 82:1).

But why "to stand" signifies to be shall be told elsewhere.

7089. 'And afterwards Moses and Aaron came' means the Divine Law and the teachings derived from it. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses' as the Lord in respect of the Divine Law, dealt with in 6752; and from the representation of 'Aaron' as teachings that present what is good and true, dealt with in 6998. The expression 'Divine Law', which Moses represents, is used to mean the Word as it is in its internal sense, thus as it is in heaven, whereas the expression 'teaching' is used to mean the Word as it is in its literal sense, thus as it is on earth. How great the difference is may be recognized from the explanations given so far that have regard to the internal sense of the Word. Let the Ten Commandments, which specifically are called the Law, be used to illustrate the point. The literal meaning of them is that one should honour one's parents, not kill, commit adultery, or steal, and so on. But the internal sense is that one should worship the Lord, not harbour hatred, falsify what is true, or claim for oneself what is the Lord's. These are the ways in which those four commandments are understood in heaven, and the rest too in their own manner. For in heaven they know no other Father than the Lord; therefore instead of honouring parents they take the commandment to mean that the Lord should be worshipped. In heaven they do not know what it is to kill, for they live for ever; but instead of killing they understand harbouring hatred and harming another person's spiritual life. Nor in heaven do they know what it is to commit adultery; consequently they perceive instead what corresponds to that prohibition - being forbidden to falsify what is true. And instead of stealing they take the prohibition to mean that one should not take away from the Lord anything such as goodness and truth and claim it as one's own.

[2] This is what the Law and also the whole of the Word is like in heaven, and so what it is like in its internal sense. Indeed it is far more profound, for most of what they think and say in heaven cannot find expression in the words of human speech, because they are in the spiritual world, not the natural world, and things belonging to the spiritual world are as greatly superior to those belonging to the natural world as non-material things are to material. Yet because material things nevertheless correspond to them, material things can be used to disclose them. That is, natural speech can be used but not spiritual, for spiritual speech does not consist of material words but of spiritual words. And spiritual words consist of ideas that are converted into words in the spiritual atmosphere, and are represented by variegations of heavenly light, heavenly light being in itself nothing other than Divine intelligence and wisdom radiating from the Lord. All this shows what is meant by the Divine Law in its genuine sense, which 'Moses' represents, and what is meant by teaching, which 'Aaron' represents.