4936. On several occasions spirits have appeared holding rods, who, I was told, were magicians. They are in front, a long way off on the right, deeply within caverns. Magicians who have been more malevolent ones are hidden more deeply than the rest within them. They seem to themselves to have rods, and by means of delusions they also produce many more kinds of rods, believing that they can use these to perform miracles. For they imagine that these rods have power within them, and they imagine this because the right hand and the arm, which by correspondence are embodiments of strength and power, support themselves on those rods. This has made it evident to me why people of old assigned rods to magicians, for the gentiles of old received this idea from the representative Ancient Church, in which rods, like the hand, meant power, see 4876. And because these meant power Moses was commanded, when miracles were performed, to stretch out his rod or his hand, Exodus 4:17, 20; 8:5-20; 9:23; 10:3-21; 14:21, 26-27; 17:5-6, 11-12; Numbers 20:7-10.

8416. 'Behold, I am causing it to rain bread from heaven for you' means that heavenly good will flow in. This is clear from the meaning of 'raining' as a blessing, dealt with in 2445, the reason why 'raining' means a blessing being that as rain comes down from heaven or the sky and causes the land to be productive, so Divine Goodness and Truth come down from heaven to a person and cause him to be blessed, from which it is evident that 'raining' in the proximate sense means flowing in (for all good from the Divine flows in); and from the meaning of 'bread' as heavenly good, dealt with below.