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.

2309. All that has been presented above shows the character of young children's upbringing in heaven, namely that it is through intelligence and wisdom - which essentially are truth and good respectively - that they are brought into the angelic life, which consists in love to the Lord and mutual love, which loves have innocence within them. But how contrary this is to the upbringing of young children among many people on earth was made clear by this single example: I was in the street of a large city and saw small boys fighting one another. A crowd gathered which watched what was happening with great pleasure. I was also told that the parents themselves encourage their small boys to engage in such fighting. The good spirits and angels who through my eyes saw what was going on were so appalled that I sensed their horror, especially at the parents encouraging them to behave in such ways. These good spirits and angels declared that by doing this the parents annihilate in the earliest years of life all the mutual love and all the innocence which young children receive from the Lord, and lead them into ways of hatred and vengeance. As a consequence they deliberately shut their children out of heaven where nothing but mutual love reigns. Let parents therefore who desire what is good for their young children be on their guard against such things.

At the end of the previous chapter - Genesis 17 - the Last Judgement was the subject, at the end of this chapter - Genesis 18 - the state of young children in the next life; and in both sections experience of those things seen and heard in the world of spirits and in the angelic heaven has been drawn on.