7668. 'Go now, you young men, and serve Jehovah' means that those guided by truths that have been corroborated will be left alone, in order that they may worship the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of the command 'go' as the intimation that they will be left alone, as above in 7658; from the meaning of 'young men' as corroborated truths, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'serving Jehovah' as worshipping the Lord, as above in 7654, 7664. The reason why 'young men' means those guided by truths that have been corroborated is that by sons, boys, young men, men, and old men' are meant aspects of intelligence and wisdom in their true order. Such aspects instead of those male persons are understood in heaven; for those in heaven possess spiritual ideas which are such that images from the purely natural order or the world cannot enter them without being instantly sloughed off and transformed into the kinds of images that are more in keeping with the wisdom of heaven and with angelic thought. This is why 'sons, boys, young men, men, and old men' cannot in the spiritual sense mean those male persons, only corresponding spiritual realities, which are aspects of intelligence and wisdom. The fact that these are meant is plainly evident from the internal sense of the places in the Word where they are mentioned.

[2] In the Word 'young men' is used to mean those who have intelligence, or - on the level of abstract ideas on which angels think - intelligence itself. And since intelligence is meant by them, so is firmly established truth since this belongs to intelligence. Also the expression which is used here in the original language to denote young men is derived from strength and power, which truth receives from good, and so which firmly established truth receives. And this name is therefore applied to the Lord in Zechariah,

O sword, rise up against My shepherd, and against the (young) man, My neighbour. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep are scattered. Zechariah 13:7.

These words were spoken in reference to the Lord, see Matthew 26:31. And also in Jeremiah,

How long do you wander around, O estranged daughter? Jehovah has created a new thing on the earth, a woman has surrounded a (young) man. Jeremiah 31:22.

[3] Another word for 'young men in the original language stands for intelligence, and so for the truth that belongs to it, in Amos,

I have sent the pestilence upon you in the way of Egypt, I have killed your young men with the sword, along with captured horses. ¹ Amos 4:10.

'The way of Egypt' stands for perverted factual knowledge, young men who have been killed' for truths which have as a result been destroyed, and 'captured horses' for an understanding that has been led into error.

[4] In the same prophet,

They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run to and fro to seek the Word of Jehovah, and will not find it. On that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint from thirst. Amos 8:12-13.

'The beautiful virgins' stands for the affection for truth, 'the young men' for intelligence, and 'fainting from thirst' for being deprived of truth; and this is why it says 'they will run to and fro to seek the Word of Jehovah, and will not find it'. The fact that neither beautiful virgins, nor young men, nor fainting because of thirst are meant here is self-evident.

In Jeremiah,

Death has come up through our windows, it has entered our palaces, cutting off the young child from the street, young men from the lanes. Jeremiah 9:11.

In the same prophet,

How is the city of glory not forsaken, the city of My joy? Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. Jeremiah 49:25-26; 50:30.

In the same prophet,

Hear now, all peoples, see my sorrow; my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity. Lamentations 1:18.

In these places 'young men' stands for the truths that belong to intelligence.

Poznámky pod čarou:

2733. There were certain spirits who, from a practice followed by them during their lifetime, were molesting me with particular skill. They did so by means of a rather gentle wave-like influx, resembling the ordinary influx from upright spirits. But I perceived that within that influx trickery and the like were present, to entice and to deceive. At length I spoke to one of them who, I was told, had during his lifetime been the commander of an army. And because I perceived that licentiousness was present in the ideas comprising his thought, I talked to him about marriage in the language used by spirits, which is illustrated with representatives and which expresses one's sentiments completely and many things in an instant.

[2] He said that during his lifetime he had thought nothing of adulterous behaviour. But I was given to tell him that all adultery is quite unspeakable, even though to those who are guilty of it it does not seem - because of the delight they take in it and the persuasive beliefs that result from it - to be unspeakable, but even allowable. I said that he might also know this from the fact that marriages are the seminaries of the human race and therefore the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom as well, and for that reason must not on any account be violated but be held sacred. He might also know, I continued, that adultery is unspeakable from the fact, which he ought to know because he was now in the next life and in a state of perception, that conjugial love comes down from the Lord by way of heaven, and that from that love, as from a parent, mutual love is derived, which is the foundation on which heaven rests. And he might know it also from the fact that when they merely move towards heavenly communities adulterers become aware of their own stench and cast themselves away from there down towards hell. He might at least have known that violence done to marriages was contrary to Divine laws, and contrary to the civil laws of all people, as well as contrary to the genuine light of reason, since it is contrary to order, both Divine and human, not to mention many considerations besides these.

[3] But he replied that he had never known such things during his lifetime, nor had he thought about them. He wished to reason whether what he had heard was so, but he was told that in the next life truth leaves no room for reasonings, for reasonings lend support to a person's delights, and so to his evils and falsities. I went on to tell him that he ought first to think about the things he had been told, because they were true; or at least he ought to think from the principle very widely known in the world that nobody ought to do to another what he does not wish that other to do to him. If some other man, I asked, had in a similar way seduced the wife whom he loved - as men love their wives at the beginning of every marriage - would he not also, when feeling irate about what had occurred, have expressed, if he spoke from that feeling, a loathing for all adultery? Also, being a man with mental ability, would he not have confirmed himself more than others against all adultery, even condemning it to hell? Thus he might have judged himself from what he possessed within himself.