From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2158

Study this Passage

  
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2158. 'Do not, I beg of you, pass from over your servant' means His intense desire, for these words, as stated just above, are similar in meaning to those preceding them; that is to say, these words as well imply a respectful regard, and at the same time imply an affection that leads to a desire that what He had now begun to perceive should not pass away.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

The Bible

 

Isaiah 37:35

Study

       

35 For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

Commentary

 

Servant

  

“Servant” literally means “a person who serves another," and its meaning is similar in reference to its spiritual meanings of the Bible. Our lives in their most outward form -- the physical actions we take and the thoughts and feelings directly connected to them -- are in a way “servants” to our deeper, more hidden, internal thoughts and desires. So in most cases, “servants” in the Bible represent things we're doing and thinking on that outward, external level. Servants can have good masters or evil ones, obviously, and a servant doing good work in service of an evil master is actually making the world a more evil place. So the precise meaning of a given servant in the Bible depends on the nature of the master he or she is serving. Finally, when the Bible is addressing the Lord's own spiritual development, “servant” represents the Lord's most outward aspect: the human body he inherited from Mary, with all its frailties and potential for temptation.