'Spreading themselves on the earth,' as in Genesis 8:17, signifies the internal self operating on the external.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 913)

2308. In the next life no one ever undergoes punishment on account of hereditary evil, since this is not his own and thus he is not at fault for being such. He undergoes it on account of the evil of his own doing, thus for that amount of hereditary evil which he makes his own by his own actions in life, as stated already in 966. The reason for returning the young children, when they have become adult, to the state of their hereditary evil is not therefore so that they may undergo punishment, but so that they may know that of themselves they are nothing but evil, and that it is in the Lord's mercy they are taken away from the hell that exists with them into heaven, and that they are not in heaven on account of any merit of their own but on account of the Lord. In this way they are prevented from boasting to others of the good that exists with them, for that is contrary to the good flowing from mutual love, as it is contrary to the truth of faith.