Apocalypse Revealed # 414
414. So that a third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. This symbolically means that they no longer have in them any spiritual truth or natural truth from the Word serviceable for doctrine and life.
The day's not shining means that they had no light from the sun, and "likewise the night" means that they had no light from the moon and stars. Light in general symbolizes Divine truth, which is truth from the Word. The light of the sun symbolizes spiritual Divine truth, and the light of the moon and stars symbolizes natural Divine truth, both acquired from the Word. Divine truth in the spiritual sense of the Word is like the light of the sun during the day, and Divine truth in the natural sense of the Word is like the light of the moon and stars at night. The spiritual sense of the Word, moreover, flows into its natural sense, as the sun does with its light to the moon, and this reflects the light of the sun indirectly.
In this way also does the spiritual sense of the Word enlighten people, even people who know nothing of that sense, when they read the Word in its natural sense. However, it enlightens a spiritual person as light from the sun does his eye, but a natural person as light from the moon and stars does his eye. Everyone is enlightened in accordance with his spiritual affection for truth and goodness, and at the same time in accordance with the genuine truths by which he has opened his rational faculty.
[2] Day and night also have this meaning in the following places:
God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night...." Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule by day, and the lesser light to rule by night. He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule by day and by night, and to divide the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:14-19)
(Jehovah) made great lights..., the sun to rule by day..., the moon and stars to rule by night... (Psalms 136:7-9)
The day is Yours, (O Jehovah,) the night also is Yours; You have prepared the light and the sun. (Psalms 74:16)
...Jehovah... gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night... (Jeremiah 31:35)
If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, then My covenant also may be broken with David My servant... If I have not appointed My covenant with day and night, the ordinances of heaven and earth, I also will reject the offspring of Jacob and David... (Jeremiah 33:20-21, 25-26)
I cite these passages to make known that the darkening of both kinds of light is meant.
Job 10
1
"My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2
I will tell God, 'Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
3
Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
4
Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
5
Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man's years,
6
that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?
7
Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
8
"'Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.
9
Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
10
Haven't you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
11
You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12
You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13
Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
14
if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
15
If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.
16
If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
17
You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
18
"'Why, then, have you brought me forth out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
19
I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20
Aren't my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
21
before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22
the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.'"
