31. That 'the great lights' mean love and faith, and are also mentioned as the sun, the moon, and the stars, is clear from various places in the Prophets, as in Ezekiel,

When I have blotted you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars, I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the bright lights in the heavens I will make dark over you, and I will put darkness over your land. Ezekiel 32:7-8.

This refers to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who are used in the Word to mean the sensory and the factual. The meaning here is that they will have blotted out love and faith by means of sensory evidence and factual knowledge. In Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah for making the earth a desolation; for the stars of the heavens and their constellations ¹ will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. Isaiah 13:9-10.

In Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness. The earth quakes before Him, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. Joel 2:10.

[2] In Isaiah, in reference to the Lord's Coming and the enlightenment of gentiles, and so to a new Church, in particular to individuals who are in darkness but who are beginning to receive the light and be regenerated,

Arise, shine, for your light has come. Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples, but Jehovah will arise upon you, and nations will walk towards your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Jehovah will be for you an everlasting light; your sun will no more go down nor your moon be withdrawn, for Jehovah will be for you an everlasting light. Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-20.

In David,

Jehovah makes the heavens by intelligence, He spreads out the earth upon the waters, He makes the great lights, the sun to have dominion over the day, and the moon and stars to have dominion over the night. Psalms 136:5-9.

And in the same author,

Praise Jehovah, sun and moon, praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, heaven of heavens, and waters that are above the heavens! Psalms 148:3-4.

[3] In all of these places 'the lights' mean love and faith. Because the lights represented and meant love and faith in the Lord, the Jewish Church was commanded to keep a light burning all the time from evening till morning, for every command which that Church received was representative of the Lord. Concerning this light it is said,

Command the sons of Israel that they take oil for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the Tent of Meeting outside the veil which is before the testimony Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before Jehovah. [Exodus 27:20-21]

That this means the love and faith which the Lord kindles and causes to shine in the internal man, and by means of the internal man in the external man, will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown at that point in Exodus.

脚注:

10200. 'Morning by morning' means whenever a state of love in clearness exists. This is clear from the meaning of 'morning' as a time when a state of love in clearness exists, dealt with in 10134, so that 'morning by morning' or every single morning means whenever that state exists. It has been shown several times before that in heaven states of love and light, that is, of goodness and truth, follow one another in sequence unceasingly, just as on earth morning, midday, evening, and twilight do, and as spring, summer, autumn, and winter do. It has also been shown that those states are the origin from which these times of day and seasons of the year arise; for things that come into being in the world are images of the realities that exist in heaven. This is so because everything natural comes into being from what is spiritual, that is, from what is Divine in the heavens. From this it is evident what the variations of the states in heaven are like, for one comes to know what they are by comparison with the states of heat and light that exist in the world, heat in the heavens being the good of love coming from the Lord and the light there being the truth of faith coming from the Lord. States there follow one another in this kind of way to the end that angels may constantly grow more perfect; for as they pass through those states they experience all varieties of goodness and truth and are endowed with them. The differences furthermore in the varieties of the good of love and truth of faith there are like the differences of heat and light in all the particular regions or climates of the planet; that is to say, those near the equator are different from those further away in either direction from it, and they are different from one day to the next, and from one year to the next. What is exactly similar or the same does not ever return; for it has been provided that nothing shall ever be exactly the same, neither in the spiritual world nor in the natural world; and this enables perfection to increase constantly.