The heart means love. A good heart means love to the Lord and to the neighbor, while a hard or stony heart means the love of self or the world -- riches and things. When the psalmist asks the Lord to search his heart, he wants the Lord to see what it is that he loves. And we are what we love. What we eat may form our earthly body, but it's only temporary, what we love forms our spiritual body, beautiful or ugly as we have chosen. It's interesting to note that the first multi-cellular motion of our embryo is the pulsating that starts in a twist of blood vessel that is to become our heart, and the last motion of our natural body is our heartbeat. It is there for all of our natural life. And of course there is a beating heart in our spiritual bodies when we come to put them on.

6978. 'And it will become blood on the dry land' means the falsifying of all truth and the consequent deprivation of it in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'blood' as holy truth coming forth from the Lord, and in the contrary sense as truth falsified and rendered profane, dealt with in 4735 (the implications of this have been stated in what comes immediately before this); and from the meaning of 'the dry land' as the natural, dealt with just above in 6976. The meaning of 'blood' as the falsification of truth and the profanation of it is clear in particular in Nahum,

Woe to the city of blood, ¹ all full of lies [and] plunder! Prey will not depart! The noise of a whip and the noise of the rumbling wheel, ² and the neighing horse and the clattering ³ chariot! The mounting horseman, ⁴ and the glitter of the sword, and the lightning-flash of the spear, and the multitude of slain, and the heap of corpses, and no end of bodies - they trip over their bodies - all because of the multitude of whoredoms of a harlot with goodly grace, the mistress of sorceries, the seller of nations through her acts of whoredom, and of families through her sorceries. Nahum 3:1-4.

'The city of blood' means teachings that uphold falsity, so that 'blood' means truth that has been falsified and rendered profane. This is evident from the internal sense of every word of the description of the city, not only in the verses that have been quoted but also in those that follow them, since the whole chapter continues with a description of it; for' the city' means doctrinal teachings. 'All full of lies and plunder' means full of falsity and of evil resulting from falsity. 'The noise of the whip and the noise of the rumbling wheel' means the defence of falsity by the use of fallacious ideas. 'The neighing horse and the clattering chariot' means by the use of a perverted power of understanding and of teachings similarly perverted. 'The mounting horseman, the glitter of the sword, the lightning-flash of the spear' means a battle against truth. 'The multitude of slain' means that countless falsities and people under the influence of them result from it. 'The heap of corpses, and no end of bodies' means that countless evils and people governed by them result from it. 'The whoredoms of a harlot' means falsifications themselves which take place; and 'sorceries' has a similar meaning.

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