Generally speaking, people who are at lower levels of an organization serve those at higher levels. Bosses boss and their employees serve; coaches devise strategy and players do what the coach tells them to do; engineers design car parts and workers assemble them according to the engineers' instructions. Ideally, of course, it's a two-way street: A good boss knows he is really there to help his employees succeed; a good coach creates strategies based on his players' strengths. Even there, though, the boss and coach are really working in service of a higher goal, seeking organizational success. The same is true in the spiritual sense of the Bible. When someone serves another, they are in a lower state, serving a higher state (or a deeper evil, if they are being enslaved by people who represent evil). This can take many different forms, depending on the circumstances. In many cases, this creates a connection between "service" and intellectual things. This is because who we are is determined by what we love; our loves are the deepest part of us. What we think, our reasoning and intellect and the things we learn about, come from those loves and serve those loves.

5912. 'You and your sons, and the sons of your sons' means spiritual good, and all derivatives from it, and further derivatives from these. This is clear from the representation of Israel, to whom 'you' refers here, as spiritual good, dealt with above in 5906; from the meaning of 'his sons' as derivatives from that good, that is, the truths in the natural which are represented by 'his sons'; and from the meaning of 'the sons of his sons' as derivatives from these, that is to say, further truths so born and derived. For when good occupies the first place and has dominion, it is constantly bringing forth truths. It then multiplies these around itself and also around each truth, making each truth like a star, the middle of which is shining brightly. But that good does not merely multiply the truths around itself; it also brings forth from those truths further truths by means of successive derivations, which are 'the sons of sons' or grandsons, and so on after them. Joseph did not invite his brothers to join him except through their father; for he said that his father was to come with his sons and sons' sons. The reason for this is that the joining of the internal celestial to the truths in the natural has no existence except through the intermediary.