Intellectual things -- ideas, knowledge, facts, even insight and understanding -- are more separate and free-standing than emotional things, and it's easier to imagine numbering them as individual things. Our loves and affections tend to be more amorphous -- they can certainly be powerful, but would be harder to measure. Using words like “much,” “many,” myriad” and “multitude” to describe a collection of things gives the sense that there is an exact number, even if we don't know what it is and don't want to bother trying to count. These words, then, are used in the Bible in reference to intellectual things -- our thoughts, knowledge and concepts. Words that indicate largeness without the idea of number -- “great” is a common one -- generally refer to loves, affections and the desire for good. Here's one way to think about this: Say you want to take some food to a friend who just had a baby. That's a desire for good (assuming you're doing it from genuinely good motives). To actually do it, though, takes dozens of thoughts, ideas, facts and knowledges. What does she like to eat? What do you have to cook? What do you cook well? Can you keep it hot getting to her house? Is it nutritious? Does she have any allergies? So one good desire can bring a multitude of ideas into play.

3441. 'For the sake of Abraham My servant' means because of the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the representation of 'Abraham' as the Lord's Divine, and also His Divine Human, dealt with in 2833, 2836, 3251, and from the meaning of 'My servant', when used in reference to the Lord, as the Divine Human. Not that the Divine Human is a servant, for the Divine Human also is Jehovah, 1736, 2156, 2329, 2921, 3023, 3035, but 'My servant' means the Divine Human because by means of that Divine Human the Lord serves the human race. Indeed it is by means of the Divine Human that a person is saved, for unless the Lord had united the Human to the Divine so that man could with his mind behold and worship the Lord's Human, and in so doing approach the Divine, he could not possibly be saved. The joining of man to the Divine Himself, called the Father, is effected through the Divine Human, called the Son, and so through the Lord, by whom one who is spiritual understands the Human, but one who is celestial understands the Divine Himself.

[2] From these considerations it is evident why the Divine Human is called a servant, namely that it serves the Divine for the purpose of giving man access to Himself, and it serves the human race in their salvation. This then is what is meant by 'Abraham My servant', as also in David, Remember His marvellous acts that He has done, the signs and the judgements of His mouth, O seed of Abraham His servant, O sons of Jacob His chosen ones. He sent Moses His servant, Aaron whom He had chosen. He remembered His Holy word, with Abraham His servant. Psalms 105:5-6, 26, 42.

Here 'Abraham His servant' is used to mean the Lord's Divine Human. In a similar way the Lord's Divine Human is also meant in the highest sense by 'servant Israel', 'servant Jacob', and 'servant David':

SERVANT ISRAEL

In Isaiah,

You, Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend, you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from the extremities ¹ of it, and said to you, You are My servant, I have chosen you. Isaiah 41:8-9.

Here, in the highest sense, 'Israel My servant' is the Lord in relation to the internal aspects of the spiritual Church, and 'Jacob' to the external aspects of that Church. In the same prophet,

He said to me, You are My servant Israel in whom I will be rendered glorious. It is a light thing that You should be a servant to Me to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. And I have given You as a light of the nations, that You may be My salvation right to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49:3, 6.

Here 'servant Israel in whom I will be rendered glorious' clearly stands for the Lord's Divine Human. Plainly He is called 'a servant' from the service He performs, for it is said 'that You may be a servant to Me to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel'.

[3] SERVANT JACOB

In Isaiah,

I will give you the treasures of darkness and the secret riches of hiding-places for the sake of My servant Jacob, and of Israel My chosen. Isaiah 45:3-4.

Here 'servant Jacob' and 'Israel the chosen' are used to mean the Lord - 'servant Jacob' in relation to the external Church, 'Israel the chosen' in relation to the internal Church.

[4] SERVANT DAVID

In Ezekiel,

I will gather the children of Israel from all around. My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will dwell in the land which I gave to My servant Jacob. And they will dwell in it, they and their sons, and their sons' sons even for ever. And David My servant will be their pence for ever. Ezekiel 37:21, 24-25.

'Servant David' clearly stands for the Lord's Divine Human, 1888, and does so by virtue of Divine Truth which is meant by 'the king', who is David in this case, 1728, 2015, 3009. Also, in relation to good truth itself is the servant, see 3409. This being so the Lord calls Himself one who serves or ministers, in Mark,

Whoever would be great among you must be your minister; and anyone who would be first among you must be the servant of all, even as the Son of Man did not come to be ministered to but to minister. Mark 10:43-45; Matthew 20:26-28.

And in Luke,

Who is the greater, one who sits at table or one who ministers? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am in the midst of you as one who ministers. Luke 22:27.

Poznámky pod čarou: