Arcana Coelestia #221
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:
1. literally, spirit
Jonah 4:6-11
6
Yahweh God prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine.
7
But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered.
8
It happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9
God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" He said, "I am right to be angry, even to death."
10
Yahweh said, "You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.
11
Shouldn't I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can't discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?"
