414. So that a third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. This symbolically means that they no longer have in them any spiritual truth or natural truth from the Word serviceable for doctrine and life.

The day's not shining means that they had no light from the sun, and "likewise the night" means that they had no light from the moon and stars. Light in general symbolizes Divine truth, which is truth from the Word. The light of the sun symbolizes spiritual Divine truth, and the light of the moon and stars symbolizes natural Divine truth, both acquired from the Word. Divine truth in the spiritual sense of the Word is like the light of the sun during the day, and Divine truth in the natural sense of the Word is like the light of the moon and stars at night. The spiritual sense of the Word, moreover, flows into its natural sense, as the sun does with its light to the moon, and this reflects the light of the sun indirectly.

In this way also does the spiritual sense of the Word enlighten people, even people who know nothing of that sense, when they read the Word in its natural sense. However, it enlightens a spiritual person as light from the sun does his eye, but a natural person as light from the moon and stars does his eye. Everyone is enlightened in accordance with his spiritual affection for truth and goodness, and at the same time in accordance with the genuine truths by which he has opened his rational faculty.

[2] Day and night also have this meaning in the following places:

God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night...." Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule by day, and the lesser light to rule by night. He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule by day and by night, and to divide the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:14-19)

(Jehovah) made great lights..., the sun to rule by day..., the moon and stars to rule by night... (Psalms 136:7-9)

The day is Yours, (O Jehovah,) the night also is Yours; You have prepared the light and the sun. (Psalms 74:16)

...Jehovah... gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night... (Jeremiah 31:35)

If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, then My covenant also may be broken with David My servant... If I have not appointed My covenant with day and night, the ordinances of heaven and earth, I also will reject the offspring of Jacob and David... (Jeremiah 33:20-21, 25-26)

I cite these passages to make known that the darkening of both kinds of light is meant.

200. The reason the tree of knowledge is now said to be in the middle of the garden, whereas previously in 2:9 the tree of life ¹ is said to be in the middle of the garden, and not the tree of knowledge, is that 'the middle of the garden' means that which is inmost. And the inmost of the celestial man, or Most Ancient Church, was the tree of life, ¹ which was love and faith deriving from it. But the middle of the garden, or that which was the inmost of this next generation, that is, of the man who may be called celestial-spiritual, was faith. No further description is possible, for the character of the people who lived in those most ancient times is totally unknown at the present day. Their disposition was entirely different from that which is at all possible with anyone today. To convey some intelligible idea of that disposition, let the point be considered that it was from good that they came to know truth, that is, from love they came to know anything of faith. But when that generation died out another took its place whose disposition was entirely different. That is to say, the new generation did not from good come to know truth, or from love come to know the things of faith, but instead had from truth a knowledge of good, that is, had from the things constituting the cognitions of faith a knowledge of those of love; and with the majority it was scarcely anything more than knowledge. Such was the change which took place after the Flood to prevent the destruction of the world.

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