5222. That his spirit was troubled' means a turmoil. This is clear from the meaning of 'being troubled in spirit' as being placed in a turmoil. 'Spirit' is used here, as it is several times elsewhere in the Word, to mean a person's interior affection and thought, which also constitute his spirit. The ancients called these his spirit, but specifically they used spirit to mean the interior man who would go on living after the body died. At the present day however, when people read about the spirit where it has that meaning, they understand by it solely the faculty of thought, without anything else subject to it apart from the body in which it resides.
[2] The reason for this different understanding is that people no longer believe that the interior man is a person's true self. Rather, they believe that the interior man, which ordinary people call the soul or spirit, is merely the faculty of thought without anything else compatible with and subject to it. Consequently they believe that because that faculty has nothing subject to it in which to reside, it will be dissipated after death in the way something air-like or flame-like is dissipated. This is the kind of meaning spirit possesses at the present day, as when the expression 'troubled in spirit', 'saddened in spirit', 'joyful in spirit', or 'exultant in spirit' is used. But in reality it is the actual interior man that is called the spirit and that is troubled, saddened, joyful, or exultant. And this interior man existing within an entirely human form, though this is unseen by the eyes of the body - is where the faculty of thought resides.
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