6839. 'And Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see' means reflection brought about by the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'turning aside to see' as reflection, dealt with above in 6836; and 'Jehovah' is the Lord, see 1343, 1736, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5667, 6303. What the sense of the letter of the Word is like is also evident here. It says that Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, as though He had not known beforehand what Moses would do, and as though He had not put it into Moses' mind and made him turn aside to see. This way of describing what happened was adopted however because it accorded with outward appearances. But the internal sense shows what ought in fact to be understood, which is that the Lord flowed into his thought in such a way that he would reflect on what he beheld. From this one can see what the relationship is of the sense of the letter of the Word to its internal sense. One can see that descriptions in the sense of the letter are of a kind suited to the understanding of simple people who believe only what agrees with appearances. They do not believe what does not agree with appearances because they have no ability to look into things at a deeper level. That being so, unless the Word had been such as it is in the letter it would not have been accepted. A person whose thought is limited to what he apprehends with his senses and who is preoccupied with worldly interests cannot understand things at a deeper level. He wishes to see with his own eyes the things he is required to believe; and those he does not see are so to speak foreign. He casts them aside as things he refuses to believe, or at best holds in doubt, when he relies on his own ideas to think about them.