904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

541. And the sun was darkened, and the air, by the smoke of the pit, signifies that the light of truth from the Lord was made thick darkness by infernal falsities. This is evident from the signification of "the sun and the air darkened," as being the light of truth from the Lord being made thick darkness (of which presently) and from the signification of "by the smoke of the pit," as being by dense falsities from hell, thus by infernal falsities. (That "smoke" signifies dense falsities, and "the pit of the abyss" the hells where and from which are falsities, see above, n. 536-539.) "The sun and the air darkened" signifies that the light of truth from the Lord was made thick darkness, for the Lord in the angelic heaven is a sun, and Divine truth proceeding from the Lord as a sun produces all the light there, and illuminates both the sight and the understanding of angels; when therefore that sun is darkened there, the light of truth, which is from the Lord, is made thick darkness; it is darkened by falsities from hell. All denial of the Divine and of Divine things by those who are merely natural comes from falsities of evil making the light of heaven thick darkness; for such look at Divine things in thick darkness, and therefore they see them as thick darkness, and in consequence deny them. Moreover, the light of heaven when it flows in with those who are in the falsities of evil actually becomes in the spiritual world thick darkness. From this it is that the evil not only do not see or understand spiritual things, that is, the things that belong to heaven and the church, but in heart they deny them. (That the Lord appears in the angelic heaven as a sun, and that Divine truth proceeding from the Lord as a sun produces all the light of heaven, thus all the intelligence and wisdom the angels have, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell 116-125, and 126-140.) It is said also that the "air" was darkened, meaning the light of truth, for the air gives light from the sun. "Skies" [aetheres] have a similar signification in David:

Thy mercy O Jehovah, is in the heavens; and Thy truth is even unto the skies (Psalms 36:5; 57:10; 108:4).

"Mercy" signifies the Divine good of Divine love, and "truth" Divine truth; and as Divine truth is the light of heaven, as has just been said, it is said, "Thy truth is even unto the skies;" thus "skies" in the plural signify Divine light even to the highest heaven, where it is in the highest degree. ("Skies" have a similar signification in Psalms 77:17; Psalms 78:23, 24.)