58. Verse 30 And to every wild animal of the earth and to every bird of the air, ¹ and to everything creeping over the earth in which there is a living soul [I give] every plant for food; and it was so.

The natural food of this same [spiritual man] is being described here. His natural level is here meant by 'wild animal of the earth' and by 'bird of the air, to which 'the edible and green plant ² has been given for food'. Both kinds of food, natural and spiritual, are referred to in David as follows,

Jehovah causes the grass to grow for the beast, and the plant for man's service, that he may bring forth bread from the earth. Psalms 104:14.

Here 'beast' stands for both wild animals of the earth and birds of the air, ¹ both being mentioned in verses 11-12 of that Psalm.

Footnotes:

214. 4. In the case of people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, their union of minds increases, and with it, their friendship, but with those who are not in a state of conjugial love, these both decrease. We have already shown that a union of minds increases in the case of those who are in a state of truly conjugial love, in the chapter in which we took up "The Conjunction of Souls and Minds by Marriage, Meant by the Lord's Saying that They are No Longer Two But One Flesh" (see nos. 156[r]-181).

[2] This union grows, moreover, as friendship is joined to love, because friendship is, so to speak, the face of that love and also its garment; for friendship both attaches itself to love like a garment and combines itself with it like a face.

Love prior to friendship is similar to love for any of the opposite sex, and after the wedding it gradually fades. But love combined with friendship continues on after the wedding and is also strengthened. It enters as well more deeply into the breast. Friendship introduces the love and causes it to be truly conjugial; and then the love in turn causes this, its friendship, to become also conjugial - a friendship which differs greatly from that of any other love, because it is a full one.

[3] People know that the opposite happens in the case of those who do not have conjugial love. In their case the first friendship that was inspired in them at the time of their betrothal and later during the first days after their wedding, more and more ebbs from the inner recesses of their minds and gradually subsides from there until it finally departs to the surface coverings of the skin. And in the case of those who contemplate separation, it entirely disappears. With those who do not contemplate separation, however, love remains in outward appearances, but inwardly it is cold.