2687. Because she said, "Don't let me see the death of the boy!" symbolizes grief that [spiritual truth] would be destroyed this way. This can be seen from the symbolism of seeing death as being destroyed, and from that of a boy as spiritual truth (mentioned above [§2677]). This symbolism, and the feeling of despair over the loss of truth, make it clear that deep grief is what these words hold.

1153. The sons of Gomer also symbolize people who engaged in outward worship, but in a form of it that developed out of the kind adopted by the nation of Gomer. This follows from several previous statements and explanations regarding the symbolism of sons ¹ and from the fact that Gomer is one of the nations that engaged in external worship corresponding to internal.

The previous verse names seven nations that practiced this kind of worship; the present verse names seven more, which are called sons of Gomer and Javan. The precise difference between one nation and another cannot be described, because only their names appear here. The prophets, though, where they deal specifically with this or that type of worship in the church, can clarify the differences.

Speaking generally, all differences in outward worship (and in inward worship too) mirror the reverence for the Lord offered in worship; and reverence depends on love for him and love for one's neighbor. The Lord is present in love and so in worship. Accordingly, differences in worship among the nations mentioned reflected the same factors.

[2] To make it still clearer how worship differs, and how it differed among the various nations in the ancient church, the following needs to be known: All genuine worship consists in reverence for the Lord, reverence for the Lord consists in humility, and humility consists in admitting the truth about ourselves. That truth is that there is nothing living and nothing good inside ourselves, that everything inside us is dead and even cadaverous. It also consists in acknowledging that the Lord is the source of everything living and everything good. The more we acknowledge this with our hearts rather than our lips, the more humble we will be. The humbler we are, the more reverence we will have (or in other words, the more truly we will worship), the more love and charity we will feel, and the happier we will be. Each consequence contains the next, and they are tied so tightly together that they cannot be separated. This indicates what the identity and quality of differences in worship are.

[3] The people named here as Gomer's and Javan's sons also engaged in outward worship corresponding to inward (although it was somewhat further removed [from inward worship] than among the people mentioned in the last verse). So the people referred to in the current verse are called sons too. As the generations — or the stages of development — descend in order, they move from deeper to shallower. The more people depend on their senses, the more superficial they become and consequently the more remote from genuine worship of the Lord. The more our worship partakes of the world, the body, and the earth, the less it partakes of the spirit, and the more distant it is [from true worship].

The people in this verse were called Gomer's and Javan's sons because they focused more on the senses, and for this reason they identified worship with the outward show of it even more strongly than their "parents" or "cousins" did. So they constitute another category here.

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