4542. 'When you fled from before Esau your brother' means when truth was placed above good. This is clear from the representation of 'Esau' as the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Natural, dealt with in 3322, 3494, 3504, 3576, 3599. This meaning - when truth was placed above good - may be seen from the explanations - given at Chapter 27 of Genesis - of the events which led to Jacob's flight from Esau. The reason he fled from him was that Jacob had stolen the birthright from Esau, by which action truth's placing itself above good is meant; for in that chapter Jacob represents the truth, and Esau the good, of the Lord's Natural. The reason why truth placed itself above good was that while a person is being regenerated truth seemingly occupies the first place, but once he is regenerated good occupies the first place and truth the last, for which see 3324, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3610, 3701, 4243, 4244, 4247, 4337. This explains why 'when you fled from before Esau your brother' means when truth was placed above good.

2307. I have spoken to angels about young children, whether these are free from evils since no evil of their own doing clings to them as it does to adults. But I have been told that they are just as much immersed in evil; indeed that they too are nothing but evil, but that as with all angels they are withheld from evil and maintained by the Lord in good, so much so that it seems to them as though they abode in good from themselves. This also is why, after young children have become adult in heaven, they are sometimes allowed to return to their evils which they acquired by heredity - lest any false notion should exist in them that good with them is derived from themselves and not from the Lord; and they are left immersed in those evils until they come to know, acknowledge, and believe that the truth is as has just been indicated. A certain person also who had died as a young child but who had grown up in heaven possessed a similar notion and was therefore taken back to the life of evils that was innate within him. At this point I was given to perceive from his sphere that he had an inclination to dominate others and that he thought nothing of lustful acts, which were evils that he possessed by heredity from his parents. But after he acknowledged that such was his character he was received back again among the angels with whom he had been previously.