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:

1944. That 'behold, you are with child' means the life of the rational man is clear from what has been stated above about the conception of that man and from what follows regarding Ishmael, to the effect that the Lord's first rational is represented by him. With regard to the rational man in general it should be recognized that the rational is said to receive life, to be in the womb, and to be born, as soon as a person starts to think that within him evil and falsity are present which contradict and show opposition to truth and good, increasingly so when he wishes to remove and subdue such evil and falsity. Unless he is able to see and appreciate this, he does not have any rational, however much he imagines that he does. For the rational is the means which unites the internal man to the external, thereby perceiving from the Lord what is taking place in the external man. The rational also brings the external into a position of obedience - or rather raises it up from the bodily and worldly interests in which it immerses itself - and causes the person to be truly human, who as a result looks up to heaven where he belongs by birth, and not, as animals do, solely down to the earth, where he resides merely temporarily, and certainly not down to hell. These are the functions of the rational, and therefore unless a person is such that he is able to think in this manner, he cannot be said to have a rational. Whether the rational exists at all is recognizable from the life belonging to the use or function it performs.

[2] His reasoning against good and truth - which good and truth he denies in his heart, yet has heard of and therefore knows of - does not mean that he has a rational. Many are able to reason in the same way who without any compunction rush into every kind of wicked action, and who differ from others only in this respect, that those people who suppose they have a rational, but in fact do not, display a certain correctness in the things they say and a presence of honourableness in the things they do, and are held to these habits by means of external restraints, such as fear of the law, and of the loss of possessions, position, reputation, or life. If these restraints, which are external, were taken away, some of these people would behave even more insanely than those who have no compunction at all. Nobody therefore can be said to have a rational merely on account of an ability to reason. Indeed those who do not have a rational usually speak from sensory experience and factual knowledge with far greater skill than those who do have it.

[3] This is absolutely clear from evil spirits in the next life who, though they were considered to be the most rational of people during their lifetime, are nevertheless more insane than those who are obviously so in the world, when the external restraints which had been responsible for their correctness in the things they said and for the presence of honourableness in the things they did are removed, as such restraints usually are with all in the next life. Indeed they plunge without shame, fear, or horror into everything that is wicked. Not so when external restraints are removed in the case of people who were rational when they lived in the world; they are saner men still because they have internal restraints, which are the restraints of conscience, by which the Lord has kept their thoughts bound to the laws of truth and good, which constituted their rational concepts.