31. That 'the great lights' mean love and faith, and are also mentioned as the sun, the moon, and the stars, is clear from various places in the Prophets, as in Ezekiel,

When I have blotted you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars, I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the bright lights in the heavens I will make dark over you, and I will put darkness over your land. Ezekiel 32:7-8.

This refers to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who are used in the Word to mean the sensory and the factual. The meaning here is that they will have blotted out love and faith by means of sensory evidence and factual knowledge. In Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah for making the earth a desolation; for the stars of the heavens and their constellations ¹ will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. Isaiah 13:9-10.

In Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness. The earth quakes before Him, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. Joel 2:10.

[2] In Isaiah, in reference to the Lord's Coming and the enlightenment of gentiles, and so to a new Church, in particular to individuals who are in darkness but who are beginning to receive the light and be regenerated,

Arise, shine, for your light has come. Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples, but Jehovah will arise upon you, and nations will walk towards your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Jehovah will be for you an everlasting light; your sun will no more go down nor your moon be withdrawn, for Jehovah will be for you an everlasting light. Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-20.

In David,

Jehovah makes the heavens by intelligence, He spreads out the earth upon the waters, He makes the great lights, the sun to have dominion over the day, and the moon and stars to have dominion over the night. Psalms 136:5-9.

And in the same author,

Praise Jehovah, sun and moon, praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, heaven of heavens, and waters that are above the heavens! Psalms 148:3-4.

[3] In all of these places 'the lights' mean love and faith. Because the lights represented and meant love and faith in the Lord, the Jewish Church was commanded to keep a light burning all the time from evening till morning, for every command which that Church received was representative of the Lord. Concerning this light it is said,

Command the sons of Israel that they take oil for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the Tent of Meeting outside the veil which is before the testimony Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before Jehovah. [Exodus 27:20-21]

That this means the love and faith which the Lord kindles and causes to shine in the internal man, and by means of the internal man in the external man, will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown at that point in Exodus.

Fusnotat:

5510. 'The man, the lord of the land, spoke' means the celestial of the spiritual ruling in the natural. This is clear from the representation of Joseph, to whom 'the man, the lord of the land' refers here, as the celestial of the spiritual ('the man' is used to refer to the spiritual, and 'the lord' to the celestial; for in the internal sense 'the man' is truth and 'the lord' good, truth from the Divine being what is called spiritual, and good from the Divine being what is called celestial); and from the meaning of 'the land', in this case the land of Egypt, as the natural mind, dealt with in 5276, 5178, 5280, 5288, 5301. The idea that the celestial of the spiritual, represented by 'Joseph', ruled in both parts of the natural is contained in the internal sense of the previous chapter; and to represent its rule Joseph was set in authority over the land of Egypt.

[2] There are within the natural these two: known facts and the truths known to the Church. The placing of facts into their proper order by the celestial of the spiritual, which is truth from the Divine, has been dealt with already. Now the truths known to the Church, which are represented by 'the ten sons of Jacob', are the subject. Facts must be placed in order within the natural before the truths known to the Church are placed in order there, for the reason that those facts are needed for the grasping of these truths. For nothing can enter a person's understanding without ideas formed from such factual knowledge as has been acquired by him since early childhood. For man is totally ignorant of this, that every truth known to the Church that is called a truth of faith is founded on the facts he knows, or that he comes to grasp that truth, retain it in his memory, and recall it from there with the help of ideas formulated from the facts he knows.

[3] It is quite normal in the next life to demonstrate in a visual way to those who desire it what those ideas are like; for things like this can be presented clearly in visual ways in the light of heaven. At the same time that visual presentation demonstrates in what darkness or else in what kind of beaming light they have kept the truth taught by the Church. With some people that truth is shown to be lying among falsities, with some among absurd, even scandalous ideas, with others among illusions of the senses, with others again among apparent truths, and so on. If a person has been governed by good, that is, if he has led a charitable life, truths are lit up by good, as if by fire sent down from heaven, and the illusions of the senses holding those truths within them are made beautifully radiant. And when they have innocence introduced into them by the Lord they actually look like truths.