Apocalypse Revealed # 496
496. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. (11:6) This symbolically means that people who turn away from these two essential elements of the New Church cannot receive any truth from heaven.
Heaven here means the angelic heaven. Thus the rain symbolizes truth for the church from there. Consequently to close heaven so that no rain falls means, symbolically, that people cannot receive any truth for the church from heaven. Truth for the church from heaven is doctrinal truth from the Word.
We are told that the two witnesses have the power to shut heaven, but as in no. 494 above, the meaning here is not that they have that power, but that people who turn away from the two essential elements of the New Church close heaven to themselves, because they continue to be caught up in their falsities.
That rain symbolizes Divine truth from heaven is clear from the following passages:
My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My word shall fall as the dew... (Deuteronomy 32:2)
(If) you... serve other gods..., (Jehovah will) shut up heaven so that there be no rain... (Deuteronomy 11:16-17, see also 11:11, 11:14)
I will lay waste (My vineyard).... I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. (Isaiah 5:6)
The showers have been withheld, and there has been no late rain. Yet you continue to have a harlot's forehead... (Jeremiah 3:3)
For as the rain comes down... from heaven..., so shall My word (go) forth from My mouth. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
Rejoice then, you children of Zion, and be glad in Jehovah... For He has given you seasonable rain in righteousness. (Joel 2:23)
You have caused to drop, O God, a kindly rain... (Psalms 68:9)
He shall come down like rain upon the grass of the meadow... In His days the righteous shall flourish... (Psalms 72:6-7)
He will come to us as rain, as the late... rain waters the earth. (Hosea 6:3)
...my word shall rain down on them, and they will wait for me as for the rain, and they will open their mouth for the late rain. (Job 29:22-23)
Son of man, say...: "You are a land that is not cleansed, which will have no rain in the day of wrath. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst... (Ezekiel 22:24-25)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 30:23; Jeremiah 5:24; 10:12-13; 14:3-4; 51:16.
A flooding rain stands for the destruction of truth in Ezekiel 13:11, 13-14; 38:22. For temptation or trial in Matthew 7:24-27.
Ezekiel 21
1
The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
2
Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and drop [your word] toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel;
3
and tell the land of Israel, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked.
4
Seeing then that I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
5
and all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more.
6
Sigh therefore, you son of man; with the breaking of your thighs and with bitterness you will sigh before their eyes.
7
It shall be, when they tell you, Why do you sigh? that you shall say, Because of the news, for it comes; and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it comes, and it shall be done, says the Lord Yahweh.
8
The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
9
Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says Yahweh: say, A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished;
10
it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? the rod of my son, it condemns every tree.
11
It is given to be furbished, that it may be handled: the sword, it is sharpened, yes, it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the killer.
12
Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people, it is on all the princes of Israel: they are delivered over to the sword with my people; strike therefore on your thigh.
13
For there is a trial; and what if even the rod that condemns shall be no more? says the Lord Yahweh.
14
You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the deadly wounded: it is the sword of the great one who is deadly wounded, which enters into their rooms.
15
I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter.
16
Gather yourselves together, go to the right, set yourselves in array, go to the left, wherever your face is set.
17
I will also strike my hands together, and I will cause my wrath to rest: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.
18
The word of Yahweh came to me again, saying,
19
Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they both shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.
20
You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.
21
For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows back and forth, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver.
22
In his right hand was the divination [for] Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build forts.
23
It shall be to them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths to them; but he brings iniquity to memory, that they may be taken.
24
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear; because you have come to memory, you shall be taken with the hand.
25
You, deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end,
26
thus says the Lord Yahweh: Remove the turban, and take off the crown; this [shall be] no more the same; exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high.
27
I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [him].
28
You, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say, A sword, a sword is drawn, for the slaughter it is furbished, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;
29
while they see for you false visions, while they divine lies to you, to lay you on the necks of the wicked who are deadly wounded, whose day is come in the time of the iniquity of the end.
30
Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, will I judge you.
31
I will pour out my indignation on you; I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skillful to destroy.
32
You shall be for fuel to the fire; your blood shall be in the midst of the land; you shall be remembered no more: for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.
