806. 'Everything that was on the dry land' means the people in whom nothing of that kind of life existed any more, and 'they died' means that they breathed their last. This follows now from what has been said above. And because all the life that belongs to love and faith had been annihilated, 'the dry land' is referred to here. The dry land is where there is no water, that is, where nothing spiritual, let alone celestial, exists any more. Persuasion of falsity annihilates and so to speak suffocates everything spiritual and celestial, as anyone may recognize from much experience if he pays the matter any attention. Once people have adopted opinions, though utterly false, they cling to them so tenaciously that they will not even listen to anything to the contrary. That being so, they never allow themselves to be taught, even if the truth is placed before their very eyes. Still more is this the case when they reverence a false opinion because of some idea that is sacred. Such people spurn all truth, and what they do accept they pervert, and in so doing submerge in delusions. It is they who are meant here by 'the dry land' which has no water or grass on it, as in Ezekiel,

I will make the rivers dry land, and will sell the land into the hand of evil men, and I will make the land desolate and the fullness of it. Ezekiel 30:12.

'Making the rivers dry land' stands for what is spiritual being no more. And in Jeremiah,

Your land has become dry land. Jeremiah 44:22.

'Dry land' stands for land made desolate and laid waste so that there is no longer any good or truth at all.