8298. 'They sought a deep place like lead' means that evils drew them down to lower levels like heavy objects in the world. This is clear from the meaning of 'a deep place' as lower levels and the hells in respect of evils, dealt with in 8279, so that 'seeking a deep place' is being drawn down by evils to those places. For their own evils cause the evil to fall, like heavy objects in the world, down towards the hells, see 8279. The expression 'like lead' is used because 'lead' means evil. But verse 5 above stated that 'they went down into deep places of the sea like a stone' because 'a stone' at that point means falsity. Both are heavy, both falsity and evil, and therefore they both fall downwards. Nevertheless evil is what creates heaviness in the spiritual sense and so is what falls as if by gravity. In itself falsity is not heavy; it is so only as a result of the evil that is present in it. For falsity by itself has no weight at all, but acquires it from evil, so that it falls downwards.

[2] It should be recognized that all metals mean good or else truth, and in the contrary sense evil or else falsity. Being less noble than all other metals 'lead' means evil at the lowest level, such as evil belonging to the exterior natural, but in the good sense it means good at that same level; as in Jeremiah,

They are all arch-rebels, ¹ disparagers, bronze and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows have become hot, the lead has been consumed by the fire; he has thoroughly melted it in vain, for the evil have not been purged out. ² [People] will call them rejected silver, because Jehovah has rejected them. Jeremiah 6:28-30.

And in Ezekiel,

Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace. They have become the dross of silver. Ezekiel 22:18.

Poznámky pod čarou:

8279. 'They sank down into deep places like a stone' means that they fell down to lower levels as if on account of heaviness. This is clear from the meaning of 'going down' - down to lower levels as if on account of heaviness - as falling down; from the meaning of 'deep places' as lower levels where the hells are located, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'like a stone' as, as if on account of heaviness. The words 'like a stone' are used because 'a stone' in the genuine sense means truth, dealt with in 643, 1298, 3720, 3769, 3771, 3773, 3789, 3798, 6426, and therefore in the contrary sense means falsity. Furthermore falsity arising from evil is by nature such that it falls downwards to lower levels like a heavy object in the world, whereas truth springing from good is by nature such that it rises upwards to higher levels like a light object in the world. This explains why the evil who have not yet undergone vastation in respect of the truths they know are in the region above hell; but as soon as they have undergone such vastation, that is, have been deprived of truths, it is as though they have had their wings cut off and they fall downwards like weights. And the worse the falsities arising from evil are, the further down they go.

[2] So it is that 'deep places' means the hells, just as 'depths' does; but 'deep places' means the hells in respect of evils, while 'depths' means the hells in respect of falsities arising from those evils, as in Jeremiah,

Flee! they have turned themselves away, they have taken themselves down to dwell in a deep place. Jeremiah 49:8, 30.

In David,

The waters have come even to [my] soul, I have sunk in the clay of a deep place, and there is no standing; I have come into the deep places of the waters, and a wave overwhelmed me. Snatch me out of the clay lest I sink; let me be snatched from those who hate me, and out of the deep places of the waters. Do not let the flow of waters rush over me, nor the deep place swallow me up, nor the pit close its mouth over me. Psalms 69:1-2, 14-15.

In Micah,

He will cast all their sins into a deep place in the sea. Micah 7:19.

The reason why 'a deep place' means hell in respect of evil is that it is the opposite of 'a high place', which means heaven and is used in reference to good, 8153. Evil also corresponds to a heavy object on earth that falls downwards on account of its weight, and so corresponds as well to the heaviness of a stone, when 'a stone' means falsity.