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:

6505. 'And forty days were completed for him' means states of preparation through temptations. This is clear from the meaning of the number 'forty' as temptations, dealt with in 730, 862, 2272, 2273; and from the meaning of 'days' as states, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850. The fact that they are states of preparation is meant by the words 'days were completed for him'; for the completion of that number of days allowed preparation to be made so that bodies might be preserved from putrefaction, by which in the spiritual sense is meant the preparation that is made so that souls may be preserved from the corruption of evil. For more about the removal of evils and falsities by means of temptations, and a person's preparation through temptations to receive truths and forms of good, see 868, 1692, 1717, 1740, 2272, 3318, 4341, 4572, 5036, 5356, 6144.