8920. 'Speak yourself to us, [and we will hear]' means the reception of truth in an adjusted form, which - in that form - they will obey. This is clear from the meaning of 'speaking' as influx and communication, dealt with in 2951, 3060, 4131, 5481, 5797, 6225, 7270, 8128, and therefore also as reception since what flows in and is communicated is received; and from the representation of Moses, the one who should speak, as the truth from God below heaven joined to God's truth in heaven, thus the intermediary between the Lord and the people, dealt with in 8760, 8787, 8805. So it is that here 'Moses' is truth in an adjusted form.

[2] As regards truth in an adjusted form, it should be recognized that when God's truth comes down by way of the heavens to people in the world, as the Word came down, it undergoes adjustment for all on its way down, both for those in heaven and for those on earth. But the form in which God's truth exists in the heavens is completely different from that in which it exists in the world. In the heavens that truth is as it exists in the internal sense of the Word, in the world it is as it appears in the literal sense. Indeed in the heavens themselves it exists in diverse forms - in one form in the inmost or third heaven, in another in the middle or second heaven, and in yet another in the first or lowest heaven. The form that God's truth takes - that is, the perception, thought, and utterance of it - in the inmost or third heaven is so superior to the form it takes in the middle or second heaven that it is not comprehensible there; it is so Divine and matchless. It contains countless things which cannot find utterance in the second heaven; it consists of nothing other than the changes of state which the affections inherent in love undergo. Yet the form God's truth takes in the middle or second heaven is in like manner superior to the one it takes in the first or lowest heaven, and is even more superior to the form God's truth takes in the world. So it is that the things which find utterance in those heavens are of a kind that no human mind has ever perceived or any ear has heard, as those who have been raised to heaven know from experience.

[3] People who have no knowledge of this suppose that those in the heavens think in the same way and speak in the same way as on earth. But they suppose this because they do not know that the interior aspects of a person belong to a higher level of existence than exterior ones do, or that the thought and speech of those in the heavens is celestial and spiritual, whereas on earth it is natural, the difference between the two being so great that words cannot describe it. But regarding those types of speech, see 1634-1650, 1757-1759, 1876, 2157, 2472, 2476, 3342-3345, 4104, 4609, 5225, 5287, 6040, 6982, 7002, 7089, 7131, 7191, 7381, 8343, 8733, 8734.

[4] From all this also it is evident that unless God's truth or the Word appeared in an adjusted form it would be unintelligible. For if it were above people's level of perception it would not pass into understanding or accordingly into faith. This is why God's truth has been given to mankind in the form taken by the Word in the letter; for if it were to appear in the form in which it exists in heaven, it would be unintelligible to anyone in the world. As soon as anyone glanced at it and saw what was in it, it would be cast aside, since it would not consist in images such as belong to natural light. Furthermore it would be full of arcana which could not possibly find a place in a person's way of thinking because they would be entirely at odds with the appearances and illusions derived from the world through the outward senses - not to mention the copious chain of deeper arcana which lie hidden within those arcana and cannot be expressed except by variations and changes in the state of heavenly light and flame, by means of which angelic speech and thought are carried on.

1876. The names of men, kingdoms, or cities that occur in the Word, as with the expressions of human speech, disappear at the very threshold of their progress upwards; for those names are earthly, bodily, and material, being things of which souls entering the next life gradually divest themselves and of which those entering heaven do so altogether. Angels do not retain the least idea of any person, nor therefore of his name. What Abram is, what Isaac is, or Jacob, they do not know any longer. Instead they form an idea for themselves from the things that are represented and meant by those characters in the Word. Names and expressions are like dust or like scales that fall off when they enter heaven. From this it becomes clear that names in the Word mean nothing other than real things. On these matters I have spoken many times to angels, who have informed me fully regarding the truth. The speech that spirits employ among themselves does not consist of verbal expressions but of ideas, like those comprising human thought without words, and is therefore the universal language of all languages. But when they speak to man their speech falls into the expressions of human language, as stated in 1635, 1637, 1639.

[2] When discussing this matter with spirits I have been given to say that when they are conversing among themselves they are not able to utter one single word of human language, still less utter any name. Astonished by this some went away and tried to do so, but on returning they said that they had been unable to pronounce them because those words were so grossly material that they belonged below their own sphere, for such words were produced by an audible emission of air articulated by organs of the body, or else by means of an influx into the same organs by an internal route leading to the organ of hearing. From this it also became perfectly clear that no part of any expression which occurs in the Word was able to pass over to spirits. Still less could it pass over to angelic spirits, whose speech is even more universal, 1642. And least of all could it pass over to angels, 1643, with whom nothing remains of even the first ideas that spirits possess; instead angels have spiritual truths and celestial goods. Such truths and goods are varied in an indescribable manner in their least forms - which are continuous and knit together in a harmonious sequence - together with the first springs of representatives whose very great delightfulness and beauty flow from the happiness belonging to mutual love, and whose happiness flows from all their delight and beauty, because the Lord's life is inspired into them