Younger
In general, birth order in the Bible reflects the progression of spiritual states, but the specifics of those states depends greatly on context: who the people in question are, and whether we’re talking about spiritual states as they flow to us from the Lord, or spiritual states as we advance through them to approach the Lord. For example, Esau was older than Jacob (by minutes, but it mattered), and as the elder represents a more internal spiritual state: the desire for good, and the ideas that flow from that desire. Jacob represents a more external state: the understanding of ideas that lead to good. The switched blessing, with Jacob getting the blessing Isaac meant for Esau, shows that to progress in life we need to put our understanding first for a while, though ultimately our loves will catch up and ultimately determine our true character. A similar thing happens when Jacob crosses his hands to give Ephraim, the younger of Joseph’s sons, the primary blessing over his older brother Manasseh. Both those cases describe blessings coming from the Lord, with the highest states coming from Him and extending down through lower states to get to us. There is a sort of opposite dynamic in the story of Leah and Rachel. There Jacob (representing the Lord himself, as a human, in His childhood) is advancing from more external states to more internal ones. In this case, then, the older daughter, Leah, represents a more external state which He had to work through to reach the more internal state represented by Rachael.
Heaven and Hell #390
390. This enables us to determine what rankings in the heavens are like, namely that we love, value, and respect the functionaries the way we love, value, and respect the functions that are associated with them, and also that these functionaries are loved, valued, and respected to the extent that they do not attribute their use to themselves but to the Lord. To that extent they are wise, and to that extent they fulfill their uses from good motives. Spiritual love, value, and respect are nothing but love, value, and respect for the use in the role, respect for the role because of the use and not for the use because of the role. If we look at people from a spiritually true perspective, this is the only way to see them. Then we see one person as much like another, whether their rank is great or small. The only difference we see is a difference in wisdom, and wisdom is loving use, which means loving the welfare of our fellow citizens, our community, our country, and the church.
This is also what constitutes love for the Lord, since everything good that is effectively good comes from the Lord. It also constitutes love for our neighbor, since our neighbor is the welfare that is to be loved in our fellow citizens, our community, our country, and our church, and that is to be fostered for their sakes. 1
फुटनोट:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Loving our neighbor is loving not the role but what is in our neighbor and is the source of our neighbor: 5025, 10336. People who love the role rather than the substance and source of the person love the evil just as much as the good: 3820; and help evil and good people equally even though helping evil people is hurting good ones, which is not loving one's neighbor: 3820, 6703, 8120. Judges who punish evildoers in order to correct them and to keep them from corrupting and harming good people are loving their neighbor: 3820, 8120-8121. Every individual and community, the country and the church, and in the widest sense the Lord's kingdom, are all "our neighbor," and helping them out of a love for their welfare and according to their state is loving our neighbor: this means that their welfare, which is to be focused on, is our neighbor: 6818-6824, 8123.
