496. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. (11:6) This symbolically means that people who turn away from these two essential elements of the New Church cannot receive any truth from heaven.

Heaven here means the angelic heaven. Thus the rain symbolizes truth for the church from there. Consequently to close heaven so that no rain falls means, symbolically, that people cannot receive any truth for the church from heaven. Truth for the church from heaven is doctrinal truth from the Word.

We are told that the two witnesses have the power to shut heaven, but as in no. 494 above, the meaning here is not that they have that power, but that people who turn away from the two essential elements of the New Church close heaven to themselves, because they continue to be caught up in their falsities.

That rain symbolizes Divine truth from heaven is clear from the following passages:

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My word shall fall as the dew... (Deuteronomy 32:2)

(If) you... serve other gods..., (Jehovah will) shut up heaven so that there be no rain... (Deuteronomy 11:16-17, see also 11:11, 11:14)

I will lay waste (My vineyard).... I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. (Isaiah 5:6)

The showers have been withheld, and there has been no late rain. Yet you continue to have a harlot's forehead... (Jeremiah 3:3)

For as the rain comes down... from heaven..., so shall My word (go) forth from My mouth. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Rejoice then, you children of Zion, and be glad in Jehovah... For He has given you seasonable rain in righteousness. (Joel 2:23)

You have caused to drop, O God, a kindly rain... (Psalms 68:9)

He shall come down like rain upon the grass of the meadow... In His days the righteous shall flourish... (Psalms 72:6-7)

He will come to us as rain, as the late... rain waters the earth. (Hosea 6:3)

...my word shall rain down on them, and they will wait for me as for the rain, and they will open their mouth for the late rain. (Job 29:22-23)

Son of man, say...: "You are a land that is not cleansed, which will have no rain in the day of wrath. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst... (Ezekiel 22:24-25)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 30:23; Jeremiah 5:24; 10:12-13; 14:3-4; 51:16.

A flooding rain stands for the destruction of truth in Ezekiel 13:11, 13-14; 38:22. For temptation or trial in Matthew 7:24-27.

4316. In the internal historical sense 'even to this day' means that their nature was perpetually so. This is clear from the meaning of 'even to this day', when used in the Word, as that which is perpetual, dealt with in 2838. The fact that the nature of those descendants was such from earliest times becomes clear from Jacob's sons themselves - from Reuben, in that he lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, Genesis 35:22; from Simeon and Levi, in that they killed Hamor and Shechem and all the men of their city [Genesis 34:25-26]; and from the remaining sons, in that these came on the slain and destroyed the city, Genesis 34:27-29. Because of all this Jacob, who by then was Israel, spoke of them in the following manner before he died: Of Reuben he said,

You shall not be a superior one, for you went up to your father's bed; then you made yourself unworthy. He went up to my couch. Genesis 49:3-4.

And of Simeon and Levi he said,

Into their secret place let my soul not come; with their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and deliberately hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is severe. I will divide them within Jacob, and will scatter them within Israel. Genesis 49:5-7.

[2] What Judah was like becomes additionally clear from his marriage to a Canaanite, Genesis 38:1-2, which was nevertheless contrary to what had been commanded, as may be seen from Abraham's words addressed to the servant who was sent to betroth Rebekah to Isaac his son, Genesis 24:3, 6, and from many places in the Word. A third of that nation belonged to this lineage, that is to say, a third descended from his son Shelah who was born from a Canaanite mother, Genesis 38:11; 46:12. See Numbers 26:20; and 1 Chronicles 4:21-22. Further evidence of what these and the rest of Jacob's sons were like lies in the unspeakable crime which they committed against Joseph, Genesis 37:18-end. What their descendants in Egypt were like is evident from the details which are recorded about them when they were in the desert, where they were rebellious on so many occasions, and after that in the land of Canaan where they became idolaters on so many occasions; and lastly what they were like in the Lord's time is shown just above, in 4314. And what they are like today is well known - they are opposed to the Lord, opposed to the things that constitute the Church, and opposed to charity towards the neighbour, being opposed even to one another. These considerations show that the nature of that nation has been such perpetually. Let no one therefore assume any longer that any Church has existed among them, only that which is a representative of the Church. Still less should anyone assume that they have been chosen in preference to others.