9022. 'Shall surely die' means damnation, as above in 9008, 9016, 9020. How the specific things mentioned all hang together in the internal sense is evident from what has been stated and shown. For the internal sense deals in sequence with the rejection, the blasphemy, and the profanation of truth and good that come from the Lord. But no such sequence is seen in the external sense, for this sense deals with people committing diverse offences - with those who strike a man so that he dies, those who kill a companion with guile, those who strike father and mother, those who steal a man and sell him, and also those who curse father and mother. This is what the Word is like so far as specific statements are concerned; that is to say, in the internal sense matters follow one another in order, in a chain so to speak, even though in the external sense, that is, in the sense of the letter, they are diffuse and in many instances disconnected.

9008. 'Shall surely die' means damnation. This is clear from the meaning of 'surely dying' as damnation, dealt with in 5407, 6119, 7494. The reason why 'death' means damnation is that with those who have been damned the truths of faith and forms of the good of charity have been wiped out. These are what constitute the most real kind of life a person has, for they are received from the Lord, who is the one and only source of life. When they have been wiped out their place is then taken by falsities and evils; and these, being the opposites of truths and forms of good which are the constituents of life, are therefore the constituents of death - spiritual death, which is damnation, hell, and eternal unhappiness. The reason why those immersed in evils and falsities, that is, those who are in hell, continue to be alive is that they were born human beings and consequently have the ability to receive life from the Lord. And they do receive life from the Lord, as much life as will enable them to think, reason, and speak, to make their evil look like good and their falsity like truth, and so to give the appearance of life.