10290. 'And Jehovah said to Moses' means enlightenment and perception once again from the Lord through the Word. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying', when it refers to Jehovah, as enlightenment and perception (for its meaning enlightenment, see 7019, 10215, 10234, and for its meaning perception, 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, 2080, 2862, 3509, 5877); and from the representation of 'Moses' as the Word, dealt with in 6752, 7014, 7089, 'Jehovah' in the Word being the Lord, see in the places referred to in 9373. From all this it is evident that 'Jehovah said to Moses' means enlightenment and perception from the Lord through the Word.

[2] These things are meant because the Lord speaks to a member of the Church in no other way than through the Word; for when He does so He sheds light to enable the person to see the truth, and also provides perception to enable him to perceive it to be such. How far He does so however is determined by the nature of the person's desire for truth, and that desire is determined by his love. Those who love truth for truth's sake possess enlightenment, and those who love truth for goodness' sake have perception. What perception is, see 483, 495, 521, 536, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1919, 2144, 2145, 2171, 2515, 2831, 5228, 5920, 7680, 7977, 8780. But the Lord spoke to Moses and the prophets by word of mouth, to the end that the Word might be disseminated, its nature being such that every detail had an inner meaning. This also is the reason why these words, Jehovah said to Moses, are used. The angels, who discern that inner meaning, have no awareness of Moses, for the names of persons do not pass into heaven, 10282. Instead of Moses they perceive the Word, while the verb 'to say' is with them converted into something congruous with it, thus in this instance into 'to be enlightened' and 'to perceive'. Nothing else furthermore is understood, in the angelic way of thinking, by 'saying' or 'speaking' when done by the Lord through the Word.

521. 'He was no more for God took him' means that that doctrine reserved for use by descendants. He was no more. As regards Enoch, that which the Most Ancient Church had perceived, as has been stated, was converted by him into doctrine, something that had not been allowed to people of that period. For knowing something from perception is altogether different from learning it from doctrine. People who have perception have no need to learn through the channel of formulated doctrine what they know already. Take, for the sake of illustration, someone who knows already how to think clearly. He has no need to learn rules on how to think. If he did so his ability to think clearly would perish, as happens to people buried in the dust of sheer intellectualism. In the case of people whose knowledge comes from perception, the Lord grants them to know what good and truth are through an internal channel, while those who learn from doctrine are granted it by an external channel, that is, by way of the physical senses. The difference between the two is like that between light and darkness. Furthermore the perceptions of the celestial man lie beyond all description, for they enter into the smallest details and are for ever varied according to states and attendant circumstances. Now as it was foreseen that the perceptivity of the Most Ancient Church would perish, and that subsequently people would learn what truth and good were by means of doctrines, that is, they would come to the light by way of darkness, it is therefore said here that 'God took him', which is to say, He preserved such doctrine for the use of descendants.