3056. 'At evening time' means a more obscure state at that time. This is clear from the meaning of 'time' as state, dealt with in 2625, 2788, 2837, and from the meaning of 'evening' as obscurity. For in the Word evening means the state which precedes the final period of a declining Church, the period called night, or else it means the initial state of a rising Church, the state called morning, see 2323. In both cases evening means that which is obscure, but here it is the obscurity which precedes the morning.

Evening, a time when the light and heat are fading away, represents a state in which a person -- or a community of people -- is turning away from the Lord, with little desire left to be good and little knowledge left regarding what good is. Evening is often a time of judgment.

In Genesis 19:1, the evening signifies the visitation that comes before judgment. (Arcana Coelestia 2318)

In Genesis 30:16, this signifies the good or truth in a state of good, but in the obscurity that is characteristic of the natural. (Arcana Coelestia 3949)