Just as natural food feeds the natural body, so too does spiritual food feed the spiritual body. And since our spiritual body is the expression of what we love, then spiritual food is what feeds our state of love: It is the desire for good, the delight of being good, the understanding of what it is to be good and the knowledge of all that's true and leads to what is good. So when food is talked about in the Bible, that's what it means, and the huge variety of forms food can take represent the huge variety of good we can seek in life and the huge variety of thought we can have leading to it.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 680, 1695, 4792, 5147, 5293, 5576, 9003)

5579. 'When they had finished eating the corn' means when there deficiency of truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'the corn' as truth, dealt with in 5276, 5280, 5292, 5402 - the fact that there was a deficiency of such truth being meant by 'they had finished eating it'. The situation in the spiritual world is that those there satisfy their hunger with truths and forms of good; for they constitute the food for those there, 5576. But once that food has served its purpose those people enter a further state of dearth. It is like the nourishing of a person with material food, in that once this food has served its purpose that person feels hungry again. This kind of hunger, which is a dearth of spiritual things, is eveningtime for those in the spiritual world, or the darkest part of their day; but this is followed by twilight and morning. Those there pass through alternating phases Like these. They enter that eveningtime or state of spiritual hunger to the end that they may long for and have a desire for truths and forms of good, which are more nutritious when they are hungry for them, even as material food is for someone who is famished. From this one may see what is meant by a dearth of spiritual things when there was a deficiency of truths.