7686. 'Before them there were no [such] locusts like them, and there will not be such after them' means that no such falsity has existed since the Church first began, and such will not exist again. This is clear from the meaning of 'locusts' as falsity in outermost parts, dealt with in 7643; and the fact that no such falsity has existed or will exist, see also above in 7649. But this needs to be explained. The subject in the internal sense is in particular those who before the Lord's Coming were on the lower earth and could not be raised to heaven before the Lord had come into the world, taken on the Human, and made it Divine, see 6854, 6914. Till then they were molested by evil ones who also belonged to the Church and subscribed to the truths of faith, yet led an evil life. Those who before the Lord's Coming belonged to the Church and led an evil life were steeped in falsity, the like of which had not existed before then, nor ever will afterwards. The reason for this was that those called the Nephilim, also the Anakim and Rephaim, who belonged to the final descendants of the Most Ancient Church, had not yet been shut up in hell but wandered about, instilling dreadful and deadly persuasions wherever they could. They accordingly instilled them into evil people within the Church; and that was how such falsity came to exist with them. Regarding those Nephilim and their dreadful persuasions, see 310, 560, 562, 563, 570, 581, 586, 607 (end), 660, 805, 808, 1034, 1120, 1265-1272, 1673. When the Lord was in the world He cast them into a hell some distance away out in front on the left. Had He not done so very few people could have been saved, for the falsity which was instilled by them carried with it a dreadful power of persuasion, and was lethal; the like of it had never existed before and cannot exist ever again. Steeped in that kind of falsity were those who before the Lord's Coming molested members of the spiritual Church. This is what the words at this point are used to mean in the internal sense. In particular they refer to those who were molesters then, but in general they refer to all who belong to the Church and molest the upright in the next life, of whom there are very many at the present day.

805. 'Everything which had the breath of the spirit of life ¹ in its nostrils' means people belonging to the Most Ancient Church who had the breath of life ¹ in their nostrils, that is, the life of love and of faith deriving from love. This is clear from what has been stated already in 96, 97. Life is what the most ancient people meant by 'breath in the nostrils' or breathing, which is the life of the body corresponding to spiritual things, just as the motion of the heart is the life of the body corresponding to celestial things. Here because the subject is the people before the Flood who from what they inherited from their forefathers had within them seed from a celestial origin, though that seed had been annihilated or suffocated, the statement 'everything that had the breath of the spirit of life ¹ in its nostrils' is used.

[2] These words also conceal something quite deeply hidden, which has been dealt with already in 97. It is this: The member of the Most Ancient Church possessed internal breathing, and so possessed breathing that accorded with and was similar to the breathing of angels, which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. The nature of that breathing varied according to every one of the states of the internal man; but it was altered in the process of time among their descendants down to this final generation of them in whom everything angelic perished. At that point they were no longer capable of breathing in company with the angelic heaven. This was the real reason for their annihilation, and why it is now said that 'they breathed their last' and that 'they died in whom there was the breath of the spirit of life ¹ in their nostrils'. After those times internal breathing came to an end, and with it communication with heaven, and consequently celestial perception; and external breathing took its place. And since communication with heaven came to an end in this way, members of the Ancient or new Church were no longer capable of being celestial men, as the most ancient people had been, but spiritual. These matters however will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.

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