5915. And I will sustain thee there. That this signifies continuous influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial, is evident from the signification of “sustaining,” when it is said by Joseph, by whom is represented the internal celestial, as being the influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial; sustenance in the spiritual sense being nothing else than the influx of good and of truth through heaven from the Lord. From this are the angels sustained, and from this is the soul of man (that is, his internal man) sustained. To this sustenance corresponds the sustenance of the external man by food and drink; and therefore by “food” is signified good, and by “drink,” truth. Such also is the correspondence, that when a man is partaking of food, the angels with him are in the idea of good and truth, and wonderful to say with a difference according to the species of the food. Thus when a man in the Holy Supper receives the bread and the wine, the angels with him are in the idea of the good of love and the good of faith (n. 3464, 3735), for the reason that bread corresponds to the good of love, and wine to the good of faith; and because they correspond, they also signify the same in the Word.

[2] That man’s soul (that is, the internal man) is sustained by spiritual food and drink, that is, by good and truth, is evident from the Lord’s words in Moses:

Man doth not live by bread only, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).

The “utterance of the mouth of Jehovah” is the good and the truth which proceed from Him.

In John:

Labor not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which remaineth into eternal life, which the Son of man will give you (John 6:27).

Again:

The disciples besought Jesus, saying, Master, eat. He said to them, I have food to eat that ye know not (John 4:31-32).

And concerning drink, in the same:

Jesus said, If anyone thirst, let him come unto me and drink; whosoever believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow streams of living water (John 7:37-38).

6978. They shall become blood in the dry [land]. That this signifies the falsification of all truth, and the consequent privation of it in the natural, is evident from the signification of “blood,” as being holy truth proceeding from the Lord, and in the opposite sense truth falsified and profaned (see n. 4735, how the case herein is was shown just above); and from the signification of “the dry [land],” as being the natural (of which also just above, n. 6976). That “blood” signifies the falsification of truth and its profanation, is especially evident in Nahum:

Woe to the city of bloods! It is all full of lying and rapine; the prey departeth not. The voice of a whip, and the voice of the sound of a wheel; and a neighing horse, and a jumping chariot; the horseman mounting, and the shining of a sword, and the flash of a spear; and a multitude of pierced, and a heap of carcass and no end of body; they stumble on their body. Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts (Nah. 3:1-4).

That by the “city of bloods” is signified the doctrine of falsity, thus by “blood,” falsified and profaned truth is plain from all the words of its description in the internal sense, and not only in these verses which have been cited, but also in those which follow, the description of it being continued in the whole chapter; for the “city” is doctrine; its being “all full of lying and rapine” denotes being full of falsity, and of evil from falsity; “the voice of a whip and the voice of the sound of a wheel” denotes the defence of falsity by fallacies; “a neighing horse and a jumping chariot” denotes from a perverted intellectual and the like doctrine; “the horseman mounting, the shining of a sword, the flashing of a spear” denotes combat against truth; “the multitude of pierced” denotes innumerable falsities thence, and those who are in falsities; “a heap of carcass, and no end of body” denotes innumerable evils thence, and those who are in evils; “the whoredoms of a harlot” denote the falsifications themselves, and in like manner “witchcrafts.”