387. And with death, signifies the consequent extinction of spiritual life. This is evident from the signification of "death," as being the extinction of spiritual life (See above, n. 78, 186). That this is what "death" here signifies is evident from the series of things in the internal sense; for it is said that "there was given unto them power to kill with sword, with famine, and with death;" and "sword" signifies falsity destroying truth, "famine" the deprivation of the knowledges of truth and good; thence "death" signifies the extinction of spiritual life; for where falsity reigns, and where there are no knowledges of truth and good, there is no spiritual life, for spiritual life is acquired by means of the knowledges of truth and good applied to the uses of life. For man is born into all evil and falsity from evil; he is therefore born also into an entire ignorance of all spiritual knowledges; therefore in order that he may be led away from the evils and consequent falsities into which he is born, and be led into the life of heaven and be saved, he must needs acquire the knowledges of truth and good, by means of which he can be led into spiritual life and become spiritual. From this series of things in the internal sense it is evident that "death" here signifies the extinction of spiritual life; this is meant, too, by spiritual death.
Psalms 36
1
An oracle is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked: "There is no fear of God before his eyes."
2
For he flatters himself in his own eyes, too much to detect and hate his sin.
3
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
4
He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn't abhor evil.
5
Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
6
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
7
How precious is your loving kindness, God! The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
8
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house. You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.
9
For with you is the spring of life. In your light shall we see light.
10
Oh continue your loving kindness to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.
11
Don't let the foot of pride come against me. Don't let the hand of the wicked drive me away.
12
There the workers of iniquity are fallen. They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise. By David.
Arcana Coelestia # 3479
3479. The Jews who lived before the Lord's Coming, as also those who have lived since then, had no other notion regarding the religious observances of their Church than that Divine worship consisted solely in things that were external. They were quite unconcerned about what those observances represented and meant. Indeed they neither knew nor wished to know that there was any internal element in worship or in the Word, nor thus that there was any life after death, nor consequently that there was any heaven; for they were entirely sensory- and bodily-minded. Now because they were engrossed in external things separated from internal, worship in their case was nothing but idolatrous, and for this reason they were very much inclined to worship any gods at all, provided they were convinced that those gods could enable them to prosper.
[2] Yet because a sense of holiness within external things could exist with that nation, so that they were able to regard as holy the religious observances by which the heavenly things of the Lord's kingdom were represented; and because they were able to venerate Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also Moses and Aaron, and after these David, all of whom represented the Lord; and above all because they were able to have a deep and holy respect for the Word in which every single thing was representative and a meaningful sign of Divine things, the representative Church was therefore established among that nation. But if that nation had known of internal things to the extent that they acknowledged them they would have rendered them profane and in so doing would have possessed simultaneously external holiness and internal unholiness, so that there could not have been any communication at all of representatives with heaven by means of that nation. This is why interior things were not disclosed to them, not even the truth that the Lord would come to save their souls.
[3] Because this was the case with the tribe of Judah more than with all the other tribes, and because today as in former times they regard as holy the religious observances which can be performed outside Jerusalem; because also they venerate their patriarchs, and above all have a deep and holy respect for the Old Testament Word; and because it was foreseen that Christians would virtually reject the Old Testament and also would befoul their own internals with things that are unholy, that nation has been preserved up to the present day, in accordance with the Lord's words in Matthew 24:34. With Christians it was to be different, as they were to have knowledge of internal things and were also to live as internally-minded people. If Christians had in fact done so, the Jewish nation would like others have been annihilated before many centuries had gone by. With that nation however the situation is that their external holiness, or holiness of worship, can have no affect on them internally, for internally they are defiled from filthy self-love and filthy love of the world, and also from the idolatry in which they worship external things devoid of internal. And because accordingly they have nothing of heaven within themselves, they are not able to take anything heavenly with them into the next life, with the exception of the few who are governed by mutual love and so do not live in contempt of others compared with themselves.
