249. Eating dirt all the days of its life means that the sensory plane became incapable of living on anything but what was bodily and earthly, so that it turned hellish. This can likewise be seen from the symbolism of dirt or dust in the Word. In Micah, for instance:
Pasture your people as in the days of old. The nations will see and will be ashamed of all their power. They will lick dust like the snake, and like the slitherers of the earth they will be rattled out of their enclosures. (Micah 7:14, 16-17)
The days of old stand for the earliest church. The nations stand for those who trust in their own abilities, of whom it says that they lick dust like snakes. In David:
Before God the barbarians will bow down, and his enemies will lick dust. (Psalms 72:9)
Barbarians and enemies stand for those who focus only on earthly and worldly considerations. In Isaiah:
Snakes — dirt will be their bread. (Isaiah 65:25)
Since dirt symbolized those who did not have their eye turned in a spiritual and heavenly direction but in a bodily and earthly one, the Lord ordered his disciples to shake off the dust of their feet if a town or a household was unworthy (Matthew 10:14).
For dirt as a symbol of what is damned and hellish, see more at verse 19 [§278].
