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:

4727. 'So now come, and let us kill him' means an annihilation of the essential teaching regarding the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'killing' as annihilating, and from the representation of 'Joseph', whom they desired to kill, as the Lord's Divine Truth, specifically the teaching regarding His Divine Human, see 4723, where it may be seen that this is the essential truth taught by doctrine. It is well known that the Church acknowledging faith alone has annihilated that essential truth, for who among them believes that the Lord's Human is Divine? Do they not turn away in aversion from the very idea? Yet in the Ancient Churches people believed that the Lord who was to come into the world was a Divine Man, and also when seen by them He was called Jehovah, as is evident from many places in the Word. But for the time being let simply the following in Isaiah be quoted,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of Jehovah; make plain in the lonely place a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3.

It is quite clear from the writers of the Gospels that these words were used to refer to the Lord and that the way was prepared for Him, and the highway made plain, by John the Baptist, Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23. The same is additionally clear from the Lord's own actual words stating that He was one with the Father, that the Father was within Him and He was within the Father; also that all power was given to Him in heaven and on earth, and that judgement was His. Anyone who has but little knowledge about power in heaven and on earth, or about judgement, can see that these words would be meaningless if He were not Divine even as to His Human.

[2] Adherents to faith alone cannot have any knowledge of what makes a human being new, that is, makes him holy, let alone what makes the Lord's Human Divine, since they know nothing about love and charity - it being love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour that make a human being new and make him holy. It was Divine love itself however that made the Lord Divine. Love constitutes a person's very being (esse), and lies at the root of the life he leads. That Divine love fashions him to be an image of itself, being much like the human soul - a person's inner and essential self - which so to speak creates or moulds the body into an image of itself, so that it uses the body to enable it to act and to discern things exactly as it wills and thinks. The body is then so to speak the effect, and the soul is so to speak the cause that has the end within it, the soul therefore being the all within the body, even as the cause containing the end is the all within the effect. The soul of Divine love was Jehovah Himself, as He was the Lord's soul, since He was conceived from Jehovah; and His Human, once it was glorified, could not be anything else. These considerations show how much those people go astray who make the Lord's Human after it has been glorified like the human of anyone else. In fact it is Divine, and from His Divine Human all wisdom, all intelligence, and also all light go forth in heaven. Whatever goes forth from Him is holy, and anything [regarded as] holy which does not go forth from the Divine is not holy.