6078. 'For there is no pasture for the flock which belongs to your servants' means that factual knowledge holding forms of the good of truth is wanting. This is clear from the meaning of 'pasture for the flock' as factual knowledge holding forms of the good of truth, so that 'no pasture' means factual knowledge that does not hold any forms of the good of truth. In the internal sense 'pasture' is that which supports spiritual life; in particular it is truth contained in factual knowledge, for the human soul desires such truth just as the body desires food. Nourishment is derived from it, and for that reason 'feeding' means receiving instruction, 5201. That factual knowledge and truths sustain the human soul is quite evident from a person's desire for knowledge, as well as from the correspondence of food with factual knowledge, 1480, 3114, 4792, 5147, 5193, 5340, 5342, 5576, 5579, 5915. This correspondence also manifests itself when a person is eating food. If he eats it while talking and listening the vessels that receive the chyle are opened, and he is nourished more fully than if he is alone. Spiritual truths and instruction in them would have the same kind of effect on people if they were to have an affection for what is good. The fact that truths nourish spiritual life is revealed primarily among good spirits and among angels in heaven. Those spirits and angels have a constant desire to acquire knowledge and wisdom; and when they lack this spiritual food they feel desolate, listless, and famished. Nor are they refreshed and raised into the bliss of their life until their desires are satisfied. But if that factual knowledge is to yield the soul wholesome nourishment, that knowledge must contain life received from forms of the good of truth. If it does not contain life received from them factual knowledge still sustains a person's inner life, but his natural life, not his spiritual life.

[2] The meaning of 'pasture' in the internal sense as that which sustains a person's spiritual life is also evident from other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

I have given you as a covenant to the people, to restore the land; to say to the bound, Go out, to those who are in darkness, Reveal yourselves. They will feed along the ways, and on all slopes will their pasture be. Isaiah 49:8-9.

'Feeding along the ways' stands for receiving instruction in truths, 'the ways' being truths, see 627, 2333, and 'feeding' receiving instruction, 5201. 'On all slopes will their pasture be' stands for being sustained with good, for 'slopes', like 'mountains' are forms of the good of love, 795, 796, 1430, 2722, 4210.

[3] In Jeremiah,

Woe to the shepherds destroying and scattering the flock of My pasture. Jeremiah 23:1.

'Pasture' stands for the kinds of things that sustain spiritual life. In the same prophet,

The princes of Zion have become like deer, they have not found pasture. Lamentations 1:6.

'They have not found pasture' stands for no truth of good.

[4] In Ezekiel,

I, even I will look for My sheep. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their fold will be on the mountains of the loftiness of Israel; there ¹ they will lie down in a good fold, and on fat pasture they will feed upon the mountains of Israel. Ezekiel 34:11, 14.

'A good and fat pasture upon the mountains of Israel' stands for forms of the good of truth. In the same prophet,

Is it a small thing to you? You feed off the good pasture but tread down with your feet the rest of your pastures. Ezekiel 34:18.

Here the meaning is similar. In Hosea,

I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. When [they had] their pasture, they were filled; they were filled and their heart was exalted. Hosea 13:5-6.

In Joel,

The beasts groan, the herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture, even the flocks of sheep ² are made desolate. Joel 1:18.

In David,

Jehovah is my Shepherd; He will make me lie down in green pasture; ³ He will lead me away to still waters; He will restore My soul. Psalms 23:1-3.

In the same author,

Jehovah made us and not we ourselves, His people and the flock of His pasture; therefore we are His, His people, and the flock of His pasture. ⁴ Psalms 100:3.

[5] 'Pasture' in these quotations stands for the truths in which a person receives instruction, here the kinds of things which have regard to spiritual life. For the nature of spiritual life is such that if it lacks that pasture it languishes and so to speak fades away, like the body when it lacks food. The fact that 'pasture' is the goodness and truth that refresh and sustain a person's soul or spirit is plain from the Lord's words in John,

I am the door. If anyone enters through Me he will be saved, and will go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:9.

'Pasture' stands for the forms of good and the truths which those people have who acknowledge the Lord and seek life from Him alone.

脚注:

3913. 'She said, Behold, my maidservant Bilhah' means the affirming means, which has its place between natural truth and interior truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a maidservant', and also of 'a servant-girl' as the affection for the cognitions which belong to the exterior man, dealt with in 1895, 2567, 3835, 3849, and in this particular case since that affection is the means by which interior truths become joined to natural or external truths, 'a maidservant' therefore describes the affirming means that has its place between these; and from the representation of 'Bilhah' as the nature of that means. The two servant-girls which Rachel and Leah gave to Jacob as wives for producing offspring represented and meant in the internal sense nothing else than something which is of service, in this case something serving as the means by which those two things are joined together, namely interior truth with external truth, for 'Rachel' represents interior truth, 'Leah' external, 3793, 3819. Indeed by means of the twelve sons of Jacob twelve general or principal requisites are described here by which a person is introduced into spiritual and celestial things while he is being regenerated or becoming the Church.

[2] Actually when a person is being regenerated or becoming the Church, that is, when from being a dead man he is becoming a living one, or from being a bodily-minded man is becoming a heavenly-minded one, he is led by the Lord through many states. These general states are specified by those twelve sons, and later by the twelve tribes, so that the twelve tribes mean all aspects of faith and love - see what has been shown in 3858. For any general whole includes every particular and individual detail, and each detail exists in relation to the general whole. When a person is being regenerated the internal man is to be joined to the external man, and therefore the goods and truths which belong to the internal man are to be joined to those which belong to the external man, for it is truths and goods that make a person a human being. These cannot be joined together without means. These means consist in such things as take something from one side and something from the other, and act in such a way that insofar as a person moves closer to one the other plays a subordinate role. These means are meant by the servant-girls - Rachel's servant-girls being the means available from the internal man, Leah's the means available from the external man.

[3] The necessity for means by which the joining together is effected may be recognized from the consideration that of himself the natural man does not agree at all with the spiritual but disagrees so much as to be utterly opposed to the spiritual. For the natural man regards and loves self and the world, whereas the spiritual man does not, except insofar as to do so leads to the rendering of services in the spiritual world, and so he regards service to it and loves this service because of the use that is served and the end in view. The natural man seems to himself to have life when he is promoted to high positions and so to pre-eminence over others, but the spiritual man seems to himself to have life in self-abasement and in being the least. Not that he despises high positions, provided they are means by which he is enabled to serve the neighbour, society as a whole, and the Church. Neither does the spiritual man view the important positions to which he is promoted in any selfish way but on account of the services rendered which are his ends in view. Bliss for the natural man consists in his being wealthier than others and in his possessing worldly riches, whereas bliss for the spiritual man consists in his having cognitions of truth and good which are the riches he possesses, and even more so in the practice of good in accordance with truths. Not however that he despises riches, because these enable him to render a service in the world.

[4] These few considerations show that on account of their different ends in view the state of the natural man and the state of the spiritual are the reverse of each other, but that the two can be joined one to the other. That conjunction is effected when things which belong to the external man become subordinate and are subservient to the ends which the internal man has in view. In order that a person may become spiritual therefore it is necessary for the things belonging to the external man to be brought into a position of subservience, and so for ends that have self and the world in view to be cast aside and those that have the neighbour and the Lord's kingdom to be adopted. The former cannot possibly be cast aside or the latter adopted, and so the two cannot be joined, except through means. It is these means that are meant by the servant-girls, and specifically by the four sons born to the servant-girls.

[5] The first means is one that affirms, or is affirmative towards, internal truth; that is to say, it affirms that it really is internal truth. Once this affirmative attitude is present, a person is in the first stage of regeneration, good from within being at work and leading to that spirit of affirmation. That good cannot pass into a negative attitude, nor even into one of doubt, until this becomes affirmative. After this, that good manifests itself in affection; that is to say, it causes the person to feel an affection for, and delight in, truth - first through his coming to know this truth, then through his acting in accordance with it. Take for example the truth that the Lord is the human race's salvation. If the person does not develop an affirmative attitude towards this truth, none of the things which he has learned about the Lord from the Word or in the Church and which are included among the facts in his natural memory can be joined to his internal man, that is, to the truths that are able to be truths of faith there. Nor can affection accordingly enter in, not even into the general aspects of this truth which contribute to the person's salvation. But once he develops an affirmative attitude countless things are added and are filled with the good that is flowing in. For good is flowing in constantly from the Lord, but where no affirmative attitude exists it is not accepted. An affirmative attitude is therefore the first means and so to speak first dwelling-place of the good flowing in from the Lord. And the same is so with all other truths called the truths of faith.