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:

5264. 'What God is doing He has pointed out to Pharaoh' means that the natural was allowed to discern what was provided. This is clear from the meaning of 'what God is doing' as what was provided, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'pointing out' as communicating and allowing one to discern, dealt with in 3608, 4856; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the natural, dealt with above in 5263. From this it is evident that 'what God is doing He has pointed out to Pharaoh' means that the natural was allowed to discern what was provided.

[2] The reason why 'what God is doing' means what has been provided is that everything done by God, that is, by the Lord, constitutes His Providence. Every act of Providence is Divine, for it holds what is eternal and infinite within it. It holds what is eternal because its view is not limited by any beginning or end, and it holds what is infinite because its view comprehends simultaneously the entire whole within any specific part, and every specific part within the entire whole. All this is called 'Providence'; and because every single one of the Lord's acts holds what is eternal and infinite within it, no other expression than Providence exists to describe it. This truth that every single one of the Lord's acts holds what is infinite and eternal within it will in the Lord's Divine mercy be illustrated elsewhere with the help of examples.