Arcana Coelestia #221
221. 'Breeze, or breath, 1 of the daytime' means a time when the Church still had a residue of perception. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'day' and of 'night'. The most ancient people compared states of the Church to the times of the day and of the night. States when the Church still had light they compared to times of the day; therefore this verse speaks of 'the breath' or breeze of the daytime' as when they still had some residue of perception, from which they knew that they were fallen. The Lord too calls a state in which there is faith 'the daytime' and one in which there is none 'the night', as in John,
I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when nobody will be able to work. John 9:4.
The consecutive states of man's regeneration for the same reason were called 'days' in Chapter Genesis 1.
Footnotes:
1. literally, spirit
Daniel 10:5-6
5
I lifted up my eyes, and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, whose thighs were adorned with pure gold of Uphaz:
6
his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as flaming torches, and his arms and his feet like burnished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.
