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.

Voetnoten:

7693. 'In the whole land of Egypt' means on every side in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as the natural mind, and so the natural, dealt with in 7674. Since 'the locust', which has been the subject here, means falsity in the outermost parts, that is, in the sensory level of the human mind, let me say what the sensory level is in order that people may thereby know what falsity in the outermost parts of the mind is. A sensory-minded person, or a person whose thought and actions are reduced to the sensory level, is one who does not believe anything unless it is palpable to his outward senses, and who is led solely by bodily appetites, pleasure-seeking desires, and covetous passions, and not by rational ways of thinking. Ideas that lend support to urges such as these are what he believes to be rational ways of thinking. Being like this a sensory-minded person denies the existence of everything of an internal nature, until at length he will not even allow it to be mentioned. Consequently he refuses in his heart to believe in anything whatever of heaven. He does not have any belief in life after death, because he considers life to reside solely in the body. He therefore also supposes that when he dies it will be the same for him as for an animal. That person thinks so to speak on the surface, that is, on the lowest or outermost levels, and he is totally unaware of the existence of interior thought that is dependent on the perception of what is true and good. The reason why he is not aware of this, nor even of the existence of an internal man, is that the inner parts of his mind look down towards things of the world, the body, and the earth, and make one with them. They have therefore been diverted from looking upwards or towards heaven, for they are turned in the opposite direction. Looking upwards or towards heaven does not consist in thinking about the things of heaven but in having them as one's end in view, that is, loving them above all else. For in whatever direction love turns, the inner parts of a person's mind turn, and so too his thought. All this goes to show the nature of the sensory level of a person's mind, or the natural in its outermost parts, for a person who thinks on the sensory level is called sensory-minded.