5415. 'For the famine was in the land of Canaan' means that a desolation existed so far as things of the Church in the natural were concerned. This is clear from the meaning of 'the famine' as an absence of cognitions and consequently as a desolation, dealt with in 3364, 5277, 5279, 5281, 5300, 5349, 5360, 5376; and from the meaning of 'the land of Canaan' as the Church, dealt with in 3686, 3705, 4447. And as the Church is meant, what belongs to the Church is meant also. So it is that 'the famine was in the land of Canaan' means a desolation so far as things of the Church are concerned. The reason the desolation exists in the natural is that the words used here have reference to the sons of Jacob, by whom aspects of the external Church are meant, 5409, and consequently such things as belong to the Church within the natural.

2995. Because members of the Most Ancient Church, who were spoken of in 1114-1125, saw in every thing belonging to the natural order something spiritual and celestial, so much so that natural things served them simply as objects for thinking about spiritual and celestial things, they were for that reason able to talk to angels and so be present with them in the Lord's kingdom in the heavens at the same time as they were in His kingdom on earth, which is the Church. Thus with them natural things were joined to spiritual and wholly corresponded. It was different however after those times, when evil and falsity began to reign, that is, after the golden age, when the iron age began. Because at that time correspondence did not exist any longer, heaven was closed. It ceased to exist so completely that men scarcely wished to know whether there was anything spiritual; indeed they did not wish at length to know that there was a heaven or a hell, or a life after death.