387. And with death. That this signifies the consequent extinction of spiritual life, is plain from the signification of death, as denoting the extinction of spiritual life (concerning which see above, n. 78, 186). That this is here signified by death is plain from the series of things in the internal sense; for it is said that power was given unto them to kill with the sword, with famine, and with death: and by the sword is signified falsity destroying truth; by famine, the deprivation of the knowledges of truth and good; whence by death is signified the extinction of spiritual life, for where falsity reigns, and where there are no knowledges of truth and good, there is no spiritual life; for it is acquired by the knowledges of truth and good applied to the uses of life. For man is born into all evil and the falsity thence, therefore he is also born entirely ignorant of all spiritual knowledges; in order, therefore, that he may be led from the evils and the falsities thence, into which he is born, and be led into the life of heaven, and be saved, it is necessary that he should learn the knowledges of truth and good, by which he can be introduced [into spiritual life] and become spiritual. From this series of things in the internal sense it is evident, that by death is here signified the extinction of spiritual life; this also is signified by spiritual death.

7607. 'For they were hidden' means because they were not conspicuous and because they turned in an inward direction. This is clear from the meaning of 'they were hidden' as not being conspicuous, in the spiritual sense not conspicuous because they were in the interior natural, where they turned in an inward direction. The reason why they could not be destroyed was that they looked to heaven and to the Lord, which is to look in an inward direction, not to the earth and the world, which is to look in an outward one. Let something brief be said about what looking in an inward direction and looking in an outward one is. Man has been created in such a way that he can look up above himself to heaven, even to the Divine, and also to look down beneath himself to the world and earth. This is what distinguishes man from animals. And man looks up above himself or to heaven, even to the Divine, when he has his neighbour, country, the Church, heaven, and above all the Lord as his end in view; but he looks down beneath himself when he has self and the world as his end in view. To have something as one's end in view is to love it; for a person has what he loves as his end in view, and what he loves rules him completely, that is, in each part of his thought and will. While a person looks one way he does not look the other way. That is to say, while he looks towards the world and self he does not look towards heaven and the Lord, and vice versa; for they are in opposite directions.

[2] The fact that man can look above himself, that is, can think about the Divine, and can be joined to the Divine through love makes it plainly evident that there is a raising of the mind by the Divine, for by no means can anyone look above himself unless his mind is raised by Him who is above. From this it is also evident that everything good and true with a person is the Lord's; and it is also evident from this that when a person looks down beneath himself he separates himself from the Divine and turns his interiors towards self and the world, in the same direction in which an animal's are turned. And when he does that, to that extent the person sheds what makes him human. From all this one may now see what is meant by looking in an inward direction or above oneself, and by looking in an outward direction or beneath oneself.