377. Verses 7, 8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth.

"And when he had opened the fourth seal," signifies, prediction manifested still further: "I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying," signifies, out of the inmost heaven from the Lord: "Come and see," signifies attention and perception. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse," signifies not any understanding of the Word, from evils of life, and then from the falsities thence; "and he that sat upon him," signifies the Word; "his name was Death, and Hell followed with him," signifies eternal damnation; "and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill," signifies deprivation of all good, and thence of truth, from the Word, and thence in the doctrine of their church derived from the Word; "with the sword," signifies, by falsity; "and with hunger," signifies, by deprivation, lack, and ignorance of the knowledges of truth and good; "and with death," signifies the extinction thereby of spiritual life; "and with the wild beasts of the earth," signifies evils of life, or lusts and the falsities thence arising from the love of self and of the world, which devastate all things of the church with man.

6296. 'But truly his younger brother will become greater than he' means that good from truth, thus the spiritual man, will receive even greater increase. This is clear from the representation of Ephraim, to whom 'younger brother' refers here, as truth that belongs to the understanding within the natural and is born from the internal, dealt with in 6234, 6238, 6267, though 'Ephraim' at this point is good from truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'becoming greater than another' as receiving even greater increase. The reason why here 'Ephraim' is good from truth is that he represents the member of the spiritual Church - the member of the external spiritual Church, to be exact - just as 'Manasseh' represents the member of the external celestial Church, 6295. What makes someone a member of the spiritual Church is good from truth - the internal part of that Church being what 'Israel' represents, the external what 'Ephraim' represents. A member of the spiritual Church differs from a member of the celestial in the fact that the spiritual member's good has been implanted in the understanding part of his mind, whereas the celestial member's has been implanted in the will part, see 863, 875, 895, 927, 928, 1023, 1043, 1044, 2256, 4328, 4493, 5117. This difference goes to explain why 'Ephraim' represents the spiritual man, and 'Manasseh' the celestial man.

[2] The reason why good from truth, or the spiritual man, will receive greater increase than good which gives rise to truth, which is the celestial man, is that the human will has been unceasingly corrupted, so corrupted that at length evil has taken complete possession of it, with the result that nothing sound has remained there. So that a person is not destroyed on account of this the Lord has seen to it that the understanding part of his mind may be regenerated and that he may thereby be saved. This now explains why there are few who still have any soundness in the will part of their mind, thus why there are few who can become celestial people but many who can become spiritual ones; and this in turn explains why those who are spiritual will receive greater increase than those who are celestial. This then is the meaning of 'his younger brother will become greater than he'.