Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 7546

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7546. 'And strike you and your people with pestilence' means so that total devastation would be effected. This is clear from the meaning of 'pestilence' as a laying waste of goodness and truth, dealt with in 7505, in this instance total devastation, since it says that 'Pharaoh and his people' would be struck by it, whereas previously in verse 3 it was only the livestock that would suffer. The pestilence at that point therefore does not mean total devastation but a general laying waste of the more external forms of the Church's truth and good.


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