10584. 'And I will take My palm away, and you will see My back parts; and My face will not be seen' means that they would see the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, but not the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'Jehovah's back parts' as the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Jehovah's face' as the internal ones, dealt with above in 10578. Consequently 'seeing Jehovah's back parts and not His face' means seeing the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, and not the internal. The fact that the Israelite and Jewish nation was like this, and still is at the present day, has been shown in all that has gone before in the present chapter and the one before it.

[2] The reason why the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship are meant by 'Jehovah's back parts' is that internal things are meant by 'the face', 10578. And people are said 'to see Jehovah's back parts and not His face' when they believe and revere the Word, yet no more than what is external, that is, the literal sense. They do not go more deeply into it in the way that those who have been enlightened do, deriving religious teachings from the Word which enable them to see its true meaning, thus its inner one.

The Word cannot be understood without religious teachings, and teachings drawn from the Word by one who has been enlightened must serve the understanding as a lamp, see 9382, 9409, 9410, 9424, 9430, 10105, 10324, 10400, 10431. The internal sense of the Word provides those teachings, 9430.

From all this it may be recognized what 'seeing Jehovah's back parts and not His face' means.

[3] But those who have no belief in the Word do not even see Jehovah's back parts; instead they turn themselves around, away from Jehovah, and see only themselves and the world. These are the ones who are meant in the Word by those who are said to turn their back parts towards the temple and worship the sun, of whom Ezekiel says,

I was brought into the court of Jehovah's house, and behold, twenty-five men, whose back parts were towards Jehovah's temple, and their faces towards the east; and the same bowed down towards the rising of the sun. Ezekiel 8:16.

By 'the sun and its rising' one should understand the sun in the world and its rising there, and by that sun self-love is meant, which is the complete opposite of love to the Lord. This is why in angels' ways of thinking the sun of the world is presented as something in complete obscurity, behind the back, whereas the Lord, who is the Sun of heaven, is before the face, see 7078. Regarding these people it is said that they turn their back parts towards the temple, and also - in Jeremiah - that they go backwards,

You have forsaken Jehovah, you have gone backwards. Jeremiah 15:6.

And elsewhere in the same prophet,

They went away in the obstinacy of their evil heart, and went ¹ backwards but not forwards. Jeremiah 7:24.

脚注:

10578. 'And He said, You cannot see My face' means that things which are interior and Divine in the Church, worship, and the Word cannot be revealed to the Israelite nation. This is clear from the meaning of 'Jehovah's face' as things that are interior and Divine in the Church, worship, and the Word, dealt with above in 10567, 10568; and from the meaning of 'seeing' them as the revelation of them. The impossibility of their being revealed to the Israelite nation is clear from the consideration that Jehovah's words are addressed to Moses, and Moses here represents the head of the Israelite nation, 10556. The meaning of 'Jehovah's face' as things that are interior and Divine in the Word, the Church, and worship is also evident from the consideration that 'Jehovah's face' has a similar meaning to 'Jehovah's glory', since Moses said, 'Cause me, I beg You, to see Your glory', and Jehovah replied, 'You cannot see My face'; and 'Jehovah's glory' means things that are interior and Divine in the Word, the Church, and worship, see above in 10574.

[2] The situation with all this may be recognized from what has often been stated before, to the effect that the Israelite nation was not at all able to see the interior things of worship, the Church, and the Word because their interest lay in external things separated from what was internal, and so they were incapable of seeing Jehovah's face, either. But all those whose interest in external things does not exclude what is internal see the interior things of the Word, the Church, and worship, and so see Jehovah's face. From this it follows that those governed by love to the Lord and also those governed by charity towards the neighbour see them; for love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour open the internal man, and when this has been opened a person is, on the level of his interiors, in heaven among angels where the Lord is.

[3] But a brief statement of what love to the Lord or loving the Lord is must be made here. Anyone who supposes that he can love the Lord without leading a life in keeping with His commandments is very much mistaken; for leading a life in keeping with them is what constitutes loving the Lord. Those commandments are truths received from the Lord, and so are such as have the Lord within them. To the extent therefore that those commandments are loved, that is, to the extent that a person is inspired by love to lead a life in keeping with them, the Lord is loved. The reason why this should be so is that the Lord loves the person and in His love desires him to be eternally blessed; and no one can become blessed except through a life led in keeping with His commandments. For by means of these the person is being regenerated and made spiritual, and can then be raised to heaven. But loving the Lord without leading a life in keeping with His commandments does not constitute loving Him, for then the person has nothing within him into which the Lord can flow and raise him to Himself. He is like an empty vessel, in that there is no life at all in his faith, nor any life at all in his love. The life of heaven, called eternal life, is not poured into anyone directly but through some agency. From all this it may be recognized what loving the Lord is, and also what seeing the Lord or His face is, namely seeing Him with that kind of faith and love.

[4] Leading a life in keeping with the Lord's commandments consists in leading a life in keeping with the teachings about charity and faith, which you can see in the preliminary sections to each of the chapters of the Book of Exodus. The Lord Himself also teaches in John that this is what it consists in,

He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. But he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. John 14:21, 23-24.

What more is meant by 'Jehovah's face' will be stated in the paragraph immediately below.