18. 'The face ¹ of the deep' is that person's desires and resulting falsities, of which he consists and in which he is completely absorbed; and because he has no light at all he is like the deep, or something thoroughly obscure. Throughout the Word such people are also called 'the deep' and 'the depths of the sea' which are dried up or laid waste until a person's regeneration starts, as in Isaiah,

Awake as in the days of antiquity, the generations of long ago. Was it not You that did dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep; making the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to go across? Let the ransomed of Jehovah return. Isaiah 51:9-11.

Furthermore, when looked at from heaven, this kind of person resembles a darkened mass with no life to it. The same expressions embody within them in general the vastation in man, described many times by the Prophets, which precedes regeneration. For before a person can know what truth is, or be moved by good, the things that hinder and offer resistance must be removed. Thus the old man must die before the new one can be conceived.

Footnotes:

523. Verse 12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; and so that the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. "And the fourth angel sounded," signifies influx out of heaven, and thence a fourth change; "and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars," signifies that all the good of love perished, all the good and truth of faith, and all cognition of good and truth; and "so that the third part of them was darkened," signifies they were all converted into falsities of evil, and into evils of falsity; "and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise," signifies that the light of spiritual truth, and the light of natural truth, were completely extinguished.