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.
