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.

In Genesis 22:9, binding signifies the state of the divine rational about to undergo the last degree of temptation. The Lord's Divine Rational as to its good could not be tempted, but truth divine, bound, could be tempted. (Arcana Coelestia 2813)

In Revelation 19:18, this signifies people whose knowledge comes from others, so that they are not free. (Apocalypse Revealed 832)

In Revelation 20:2, this signifies that people pictured by the dragon were to be restrained and torn away from all others in the World of Spirits, so that there could be no communication with them for some time. (Apocalypse Revealed 842)

5695. And he washed his faces. That this signifies that it so arranged, is evident from the signification of “washing the faces,” as here being to arrange so as not to appear; for the face was washed that no trace of tears might appear; consequently it was arranged in this way. How the case is with these things will of the Lord’s Divine mercy be told in the following pages. Here something must be said about the correspondence of the face with the interiors. The face is the external representative of the interiors, for the face is so formed that the interiors may appear in it as in a representative mirror, and that another may know from it of what mind the person is toward him; so that when he speaks he shows his feelings by his face as well as by his words. The most ancient people, who were of the celestial church, had a face like this; and all the angels have it, for they have no desire to conceal from others what they think, because they think well and only well toward the neighbor, nor have they any lurking thought of wishing well to the neighbor for the sake of themselves. But the infernals, when not seen in the light of heaven, have a different face from that which corresponds to their interiors. The reason is that in the life of the body their faces had shown charity toward the neighbor, merely for the sake of their own honor and gain, and yet they had never wished well to the neighbor except insofar as he favored them. The result is that the makeup of their faces is so much out of agreement with their interiors that sometimes enmities, hatreds, revenges, and murderous feeling are within, while their faces are made up so as to beam with love toward the neighbor. This shows how great at the present day is the disagreement between the interiors and the exteriors, resulting in the cultivation of such arts.