860. Whose number is as the sand of the sea. This symbolizes the multitude of such people.

The multitude of such people is likened to the sand of the sea, because the sea symbolizes the external component of the church (nos. 402-404, 470), and the sand is something which serves no use in the sea except to compose the bottom.

Because the number of such people is so great, therefore the valley of their burial is called "The Multitude of Gog," and the name of the city where they are, "The Multitude" (Ezekiel 39:15-16).

402. Then the second angel sounded. (8:8) This symbolizes an examination and disclosure of the state of the church and its character in people caught up externally in that faith.

To be shown that to sound a trumpet means, symbolically, to examine and disclose the state of the church and so of the life in people for whom religion is faith alone, see no. 397 above.

What is said here concerns people caught up externally in that faith because the subject now is people who are at sea, whereas previously it was people upon the earth; and those on the earth mean people concerned with the internal elements of the church, namely the clergy, while those at sea mean people concerned with the external elements of the church, namely the laity (see no. 398 above).

These people in the spiritual world are seemingly at sea (nos. 238, 290).