2917. I will bury my dead from before me. That this signifies that thus He would come forth and rise again from the night in which they were, is evident from the signification of “burying,” as being to rise again (see just above, n. 2916); and from the signification of “dead,” as being the state of shade or of night, that is, of ignorance (see als o above, n. 2908, 2912), out of which the Lord comes forth and rises with man, when He is acknowledged. Before this He is in night, because He does not appear; He rises again with everyone who is being regenerated.

1854. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age. That this signifies the enjoyment of all goods by those who are the Lord’s, is evident from the fact that those who die and are buried do not die, but pass from an obscure life into a clear one. For the death of the body is merely the continuation and also the perfection of the life, and they who are the Lord’s then first come into the enjoyment of all goods, which enjoyment is signified by “a good old age.” The expressions that they “died,” were “buried,” and were “gathered to their fathers,” are often met with, but in the internal sense these do not signify the same as in the sense of the letter. In the internal sense are such things as are of the life after death and are eternal; but in the sense of the letter are such as are of the life in the world and belong to time.

[2] Consequently they who are in the internal sense (as the angels are) when such expressions are met with never abide in ideas of death and burial, but in such as relate to the continuance of life, for they regard death as nothing but the putting off of those things which are of grossest nature and of time, and as being a continuation of the real life; in fact they do not know what death is, for they think nothing about it. And the like is the case with the ages of man, so that when it is here said “in a good old age,” the angels have no perception at all of old age, indeed they do not know what old age is, for they are constantly verging toward the life of early manhood and of youth. Such life, and consequently the celestial and spiritual things of it, are what are meant when “a good old age” and similar expressions occur in the Word.