5039. 'And he was there in the prison-house' means the duration of that temptation. This is clear from the meaning of 'the prison-house' as vastation and also temptation, dealt with just above in 5036, 5037, and from the meaning of 'being in that house' as staying there, and so the duration.

699. To witness the torment of those who are in hell, and also the vastation of those who are on the lower earth, I have several times been sent down there. (Being sent down into hell does not involve being taken from one place to another; it involves being admitted into some community of hell and yet remaining just where you are.) Let this one experience be described here: I once perceived clearly that a sort of column was surrounding me. This column grew noticeably thicker. Then it was instilled into me that this was 'the wall of bronze' mentioned in the Word, ¹ and that it consisted of angelic spirits, so that I could be sent down to the unfortunate and yet remain unharmed. While I was there I heard miserable wailings, in particular these, 'O God, O God, have mercy on us, have mercy on us and this went on for a long time. I was also allowed to talk to those wretches, and to do so quite a lot. Most of all they moaned about evil spirits longing and burning to do nothing else but torment them. In their despair they said they were convinced that the torment would last for ever. But I was allowed to comfort them.

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