9314. 'And will act as adversary to your adversaries' means that He will turn away all evils from which falsities arise. This is clear from the meaning of 'acting as adversary', when it refers to Jehovah or the Lord, as turning away, dealt with immediately above in 9313; and from the meaning of 'adversaries' as evils from which falsities arise, since those evils in the spiritual sense are 'adversaries' opposed to forms of good from which truths spring. The reason why evils from which falsities arise are meant by 'adversaries' is that falsities arising from evil are meant by 'enemies'; for wherever falsity is the subject in the Word, so too is evil, even as when truth is the subject so too is good, see 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712, 3132, 4138 (end), 5138, 5502, 6343, 7945, 8339. From this it is evident that one thing is meant by 'acting as enemy to enemies' and another thing by 'acting as adversary to adversaries', and that the latter is not a repetition that occurs simply to make the subject sound more lofty.

2706. That 'God was with the boy' means the Lord's presence with those who are spiritual is clear from the meaning of 'God being with someone' and from the meaning of 'the boy'.

With regard to 'God's being with someone' meaning the Lord's presence, this may be seen without any explanation. The Lord is indeed present with everyone, for from no other source does life flow, and He governs every specific detail of it. This is so even with the worst of men, and in hell itself. But the nature of His presence varies according to the way His life is received. In the case of those who receive the life of the love of His good and truth wrongfully and who pervert it into the loves of what is evil and false, the Lord is present and as far as possible overrules for good their ends in view. But His presence with them is called 'absence' - an absence to the degree that evil is distant from good, and falsity from truth. With those however who do receive the life of the love of the Lord's good and truth it is referred to as 'presence', a presence to the degree of reception. The Lord's presence may be compared to the sun which is present with its heat and light in all plant life according to the reception of it.

With regard to 'the boy' meaning the spiritual as regards truth, this has been stated above. But here he means those who are spiritual because he represents the member of the spiritual Church, also the spiritual Church itself, and in the universal sense the Lord's spiritual kingdom. For when it is said that anyone means that which is spiritual, as here where 'the boy' means the spiritual as regards truth, those who are spiritual are included in the meaning, since the spiritual does not exist without a subject. The same applies to everything else spoken of in the abstracted sense.