640. Verses 5, 6. And if anyone will hurt them, fire shall go forth out of their mouth and shall devour their enemies; and if anyone will hurt them, thus must he be killed. These have power to shut heaven that it rain no rain in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they will.

5. "And if anyone will hurt them," signifies protection of these by the Lord that they be not hurt in any way n. 641; "fire shall go forth out of their mouth and shall devour their enemies," signifies that those who would do them harm fall into the evils and falsities which are from hell, and these destroy them n. 642; "and if anyone will hurt them, thus must he be killed," signifies that according to their endeavor to inflict evil they perish n. 643.

6. "These have power to shut heaven that it rain no rain in the days of their prophecy," signifies that those who reject the goods and truths of heaven and the church, that proceed from the Lord, receive no influx out of heaven n. 644; "and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood," signifies that truths with such are turned into the falsities of evil (n. 645); "and to smite the earth with every plague," signifies that the church with such is destroyed by the lusts of evil n. 646; "as often as they will," signifies as often as a man assaults the goods of love and the truths of doctrine that bear witness of the Lord and from which man acknowledges and confesses the Lord, that he may inflict evil upon them n. 647.