7
Och jag profeterade, såsom det hade blivit mig bjudet. Och när jag nu profeterade, hördes ett rassel, och där blev ett gny, och benen kommo åter tillhopa, så att det ena benet fogades till det andra.
Hesekiel 37:7
Comfort
When the Bible talks about someone being comforted or consoled, it generally means that they are being offered ideas that will help bring them to a more peaceful spiritual state, whether it is a new state or the restoration of one that had been under attack. It's interesting; we tend to think of comforting someone as an emotional thing, offering our own feelings to help them feel better. But the Writings say that the spiritual meaning of 'comfort' is actually more intellectual, coming when a person gains new true ideas.
In Genesis 5:29, this signifies doctrine whereby what was perverted may be restored. (Arcana Coelestia 531)
In Genesis 27:42, this signifies intent to invert the current spiritual state.
Arcana Coelestia #806
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.
