8858. A person's whole character is determined by the nature of whatever dominates his life; this is what marks him off from others. His heaven is formed in accordance with it if he is good, or his hell if he is bad. For it constitutes his true will and so the true being of his life, which is unchangeable after death. From all this one may see what the life is like in a person who has been regenerated, and what it is like in one who has not been regenerated.

9411. 'And they saw God' means faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'seeing God' as being endowed with intelligence and faith. 'Seeing' in the internal sense means seeing in a spiritual manner, and seeing in a spiritual manner implies seeing with the gift of faith; this is why 'seeing' in the Word means having faith, 2325, 3863, 3869, 4403-4421, 5400, 6805, 9128. The reason why they saw the God of Israel, that is, the Lord, is that in a broad sense the laws declared from Mount Sinai mean the Word in its entirety, and the Word is Divine Truth from the Lord, which deals in its highest sense with the Lord alone. All this being so, those who receive enlightenment when they read the Word see the Lord; they do so because of the faith and the love they have. They see Him solely in the Word and in no other writing whatever. From this it is evident why Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders saw Him. The fact that these saw Him and not the children of Israel who had been set apart is evident from the preceding verses 9 and 10, which say, 'Moses and Aaron went up, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel', and the present verse says, 'And on the children of Israel who had been set apart He did not lay a hand'. The reason why the former saw God and not the latter was that 'Moses and Aaron' represented the Word in respect of its inward and outward senses, 9374, 'Nadab and Abihu' teachings derived from both senses, 9375, and 'the seventy elders' all who are governed by good which results from truths received from there, 9376, 9404, whereas 'the children of Israel who had been set apart' represented those who are restricted to the outward sense of the Word, separated from the inward.

8138. 'In Pharaoh and in all his army' means the submersion into hell of those steeped in falsities arising from evil, and their encompassment there by falsities as if by waters. This is clear from what has been mentioned immediately above in 8137, that 'Pharaoh' means those who were cast into hell, as also does 'his army', 'Pharaoh' being those steeped in falsities arising from evil, and 'his army' the falsities themselves. 'Armies' are truths springing from good, see 3448, 7236, 7988, and therefore in the contrary sense they are falsities arising from evil, 3448. The expression 'encompassment by falsities as if by waters' is used because falsities that arise from evil - the kind of falsities that exist with those belonging to the Church who have championed separated faith and have led a life of evil - are seen there as waters, 8137. This also is why deluges of water mean situations in which truth is laid waste while the water present in them means falsities, 705, 739, 756, 6346, 6853.