380. 7784. [Is. 26:] verse 20. The comforting continues of those who are in [this] life. For "to hide themselves for a little moment, to enter their chambers," while a person is living in the body, is to enter within oneself, and meditate, and "shut the door," that is, not let in anything which distracts one into what is contrary, delaying, "until the anger is past." For temptation is very much like an anger of God the Messiah, when yet there is by no means anger, but love, so that the person may thereby be regenerated. The words likewise concern those who are to rise again after the life of the body. For them, the chamber is the grave, the door to which is closed, and it is a "little moment" from one's death until the last judgment. For to those who are in heaven, there is not time such as there is to those in the life of the body. That for them there cannot be any such thing as time, may be clear from many considerations, for they do not, like those in the body, ponder about the future, and deduce things to come from things past, thus measuring intervals of time as mankind. Neither do they feel the anxiety and the concerns which also prompt people to keep track of time. Such is the state they are in, so that it is a little [moment] for them from the time of their death to the last judgment, even if they should live for several thousand years. If you ask them where they have been for so long a time, they do not know; whether they are about to do something, whether they are going somewhere else, this they do not know, either, being altogether dependent upon the will of God the Messiah. However, one can hardly tell the difference between their state of life in the present and the state of life of people on earth. But the description of their life and of the difference between the life of spirits, or those living after the death of the body, and the life of people in the body, will, if God the Messiah deems it fitting, be continued elsewhere, as the occasion arises. In the meantime, [suffice it to say that] the state of those who are in the Heaven of God the Messiah is a most happy one. They have no anxiety, because no recollection of the past nor concern for the future, and most important, none for the present. But the state of the unhappy will be continual distress in time present, one grief perpetually leading to another, etc. [Happiness; Future; Past; Time]