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.

8920. 'Speak yourself to us, [and we will hear]' means the reception of truth in an adjusted form, which - in that form - they will obey. This is clear from the meaning of 'speaking' as influx and communication, dealt with in 2951, 3060, 4131, 5481, 5797, 6225, 7270, 8128, and therefore also as reception since what flows in and is communicated is received; and from the representation of Moses, the one who should speak, as the truth from God below heaven joined to God's truth in heaven, thus the intermediary between the Lord and the people, dealt with in 8760, 8787, 8805. So it is that here 'Moses' is truth in an adjusted form.

[2] As regards truth in an adjusted form, it should be recognized that when God's truth comes down by way of the heavens to people in the world, as the Word came down, it undergoes adjustment for all on its way down, both for those in heaven and for those on earth. But the form in which God's truth exists in the heavens is completely different from that in which it exists in the world. In the heavens that truth is as it exists in the internal sense of the Word, in the world it is as it appears in the literal sense. Indeed in the heavens themselves it exists in diverse forms - in one form in the inmost or third heaven, in another in the middle or second heaven, and in yet another in the first or lowest heaven. The form that God's truth takes - that is, the perception, thought, and utterance of it - in the inmost or third heaven is so superior to the form it takes in the middle or second heaven that it is not comprehensible there; it is so Divine and matchless. It contains countless things which cannot find utterance in the second heaven; it consists of nothing other than the changes of state which the affections inherent in love undergo. Yet the form God's truth takes in the middle or second heaven is in like manner superior to the one it takes in the first or lowest heaven, and is even more superior to the form God's truth takes in the world. So it is that the things which find utterance in those heavens are of a kind that no human mind has ever perceived or any ear has heard, as those who have been raised to heaven know from experience.

[3] People who have no knowledge of this suppose that those in the heavens think in the same way and speak in the same way as on earth. But they suppose this because they do not know that the interior aspects of a person belong to a higher level of existence than exterior ones do, or that the thought and speech of those in the heavens is celestial and spiritual, whereas on earth it is natural, the difference between the two being so great that words cannot describe it. But regarding those types of speech, see 1634-1650, 1757-1759, 1876, 2157, 2472, 2476, 3342-3345, 4104, 4609, 5225, 5287, 6040, 6982, 7002, 7089, 7131, 7191, 7381, 8343, 8733, 8734.

[4] From all this also it is evident that unless God's truth or the Word appeared in an adjusted form it would be unintelligible. For if it were above people's level of perception it would not pass into understanding or accordingly into faith. This is why God's truth has been given to mankind in the form taken by the Word in the letter; for if it were to appear in the form in which it exists in heaven, it would be unintelligible to anyone in the world. As soon as anyone glanced at it and saw what was in it, it would be cast aside, since it would not consist in images such as belong to natural light. Furthermore it would be full of arcana which could not possibly find a place in a person's way of thinking because they would be entirely at odds with the appearances and illusions derived from the world through the outward senses - not to mention the copious chain of deeper arcana which lie hidden within those arcana and cannot be expressed except by variations and changes in the state of heavenly light and flame, by means of which angelic speech and thought are carried on.