860. From these considerations it also becomes clear that all regeneration advances from evening to morning, as is mentioned six times in Genesis 1 where the regeneration of man is the subject. Here the evening is described in verses 2-3, the morning in verses 4-5. The present verse describes the first ray of light or the morning of this state as 'the tops of the mountains appearing'.

6136. 'Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our ground?' means that if they have been made desolate, there is no longer any spiritual life beneath the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'before your eyes' as beneath the internal, for 'Joseph', to whom these words are addressed, represents the internal; and from the meaning of 'both we and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135, and so the receptacles of spiritual life. Those receptacles are said 'to die' when they do not have any spiritual life at all within them; for 'to die' means desolation, that is, the deprivation of goodness and truth, the components of spiritual life.