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.

Footnotes:

312. So I looked, and behold, a black horse. This symbolizes an understanding of the Word among them extinguished as to truth, thus extinguished as regards their doctrine.

We showed above that a horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word. Blackness symbolizes a lack of truth, thus falsity, because blackness is the opposite of whiteness, and whiteness is predicated of truth (nos. 167, 231, 232). Whiteness is also the result of light, while blackness results from darkness, thus from the absence of light, and light means truth.

In the spiritual world, however, blackness has a double origin, one resulting from the absence of a flaming light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's celestial kingdom, and the other resulting from the absence of a bright white light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. The first kind of blackness has the same symbolism as a thick darkness, the second the same as a gloomy darkness. The two kinds differ from each other. One is dreadful, the other not so dreadful. It is the same with the falsities that they symbolize. The spirits who appear in a terrible darkness are called devils. They also abhor truth as owls do the light of the sun. In contrast, the spirits who appear in a darkness that is not so dreadful are called satanic spirits. They do not abhor truth, though they are still averse to it, and therefore they may be likened to barn owls, but the first to eagle owls.

The fact that blackness in the Word is predicated of falsity can be seen from the following passages:

Her Nazirites were brighter than snow... Darkened more than blackness is their form. (Lamentations 4:7-8)

...on the prophets... the day shall grow black. (Micah 3:6)

On the day that you go down to hell..., I will make Lebanon dark over you... (Ezekiel 31:15)

...the sun became as black as sackcloth of goat's hair... (Revelation 6:12)

The sun, moon and stars are darkened in Jeremiah 4:27-28, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10; 3:15, and elsewhere.

It was the third living creature that displayed the black horse because it had a face like a human being, which symbolized the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom (no. 243). Consequently it was this living creature that displayed the fact that there was no longer any truth of wisdom in the people who were third in order.