9371. THE INTERNAL SENSE.

Verses 1-2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and bow yourselves afar off; and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him. “And He said unto Moses,” signifies that which concerns the Word in general; “come up unto Jehovah,” signifies conjunction with the Lord; “thou and Aaron,” signifies the Word in the internal sense and the external sense; “Nadab and Abihu,” signifies doctrine from both senses; “and seventy of the elders of Israel,” signifies the chief truths of the church which are of the Word, or of doctrine, and which agree with good; “and bow yourselves afar off,” signifies humiliation and adoration from the heart, and then the influx of the Lord; “and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah,” signifies the conjunction and presence of the Lord through the Word in general; “and they shall not come near,” signifies no separate conjunction and presence; “and the people shall not come up with him,” signifies no conjunction whatever with the external apart from the internal.

1672. And the kings that were with him. That this signifies the apparent truth which is of that good, is evident from the signification of “kings” in the Word. “Kings,” “kingdoms,” and “peoples,” in the historical and the prophetical parts of the Word, signify truths and the things which are of truths, as may be abundantly confirmed. In the Word an accurate distinction is made between a “people” and a “nation;” by a “people” are signified truths, and by a “nation” goods, as before shown (n. 1259, 1260). “Kings” are predicated of peoples, but not so much of nations. Before the sons of Israel sought for kings, they were a nation, and represented good, or the celestial; but after they desired a king, and received one, they became a people, and did not represent good or the celestial, but truth or the spiritual; which was the reason why this was imputed to them as a fault (see 1 Samuel 8:7-22, concerning which subject, of the Lord’s Divine mercy elsewhere). As Chedorlaomer is named here, and it is added, “the kings that were with him,” both good and truth are signified; by “Chedorlaomer,” good, and by “the kings,” truth. But what was the quality of the good and truth at the beginning of the Lord’s temptations has already been stated.

3761. 'Jacob lifted up his feet' means a raising up of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'lifting up' as a raising up, and from the meaning of 'the feet' as the natural, dealt with below. The raising up meant here is the subject of the chapter itself, namely a raising up from external truth towards internal good. In the highest sense the subject is how the Lord according to order raised His Natural even up to the Divine, rising up step by step from external truth towards internal good. In the representative sense it is how the Lord according to a similar order makes man's natural new when regenerating him. The fact that a person who is being regenerated in adult life progresses according to the order described in the internal sense of this chapter and of those that follow is known to few. This fact is known to few because few stop to reflect on the matter and also because few at the present day are able to be regenerated; for the last days of the Church have arrived when no charity exists any longer, nor consequently any faith. This being so, people do not even know what faith is, even though the assertion 'men is saved by faith' is on everyone's lips; and not knowing this they therefore have even less knowledge of what charity is. And since they know no more than the terms faith and charity and have no knowledge of what these are essentially, it has therefore been stated that few are able to reflect on the order in accordance with which a person is made new or regenerated, and also that few are able to be regenerated.

[2] Because the subject here is the natural, and the latter is represented by 'Jacob', it is not said that he rose up and went to the land of the sons of the east but that 'he lifted up his feet'. Both these expressions mean a raising up. As regards 'rising up' having this meaning, see 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171; and as regards the expression 'lifting up the feet' which occurs here, this is used in reference to the natural - 'the feet' meaning the natural, see 2162, 3147. 'The feet' means the natural or natural things because of their correspondence with the Grand Man - currently the subject at the ends of chapters. In the Grand Man those belonging to the province of the feet are those who dwell in natural light and little spiritual light. This also is why the parts beneath the foot - the sole and the heel - mean the lowest natural things, see 259, and why 'a shoe', which is also mentioned several times in the Word, means the bodily-natural, which is the lowest part of all, 1748.