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Genesis 1

Lernen

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.

4 And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it be a division between waters and waters.

7 And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse; and it was so.

8 And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning -- a second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry [land] appear. And it was so.

10 And God called the dry [land] Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth cause grass to spring up, herb producing seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their kind, the seed of which is in them, on the earth. And it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, herb producing seed after its kind, and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in them, after their kind. And God saw that it was good.

13 And there was evening, and there was morning -- a third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so.

16 And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night, -- and the stars.

17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth,

18 and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

19 And there was evening, and there was morning -- a fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens.

21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth.

23 And there was evening, and there was morning -- a fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after their kind. And it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over the whole earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth.

27 And God created Man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every animal that moveth on the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb producing seed that is on the whole earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree producing seed: it shall be food for you;

30 and to every animal of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth on the earth, in which is a living soul, every green herb for food. And it was so.

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.

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Arcana Coelestia #10156

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10156. Who have brought them out from the land of Egypt. That this signifies salvation from hell by the Lord, is evident from the signification of “being brought out from the land of Egypt,” as being to be liberated from hell (see n. 8866, 9197), thus to be saved. That by “the land of Egypt” is signified hell, is because by that land in the genuine sense is signified the natural and its memory-knowledge; and to be brought forth from the natural man and its memory-knowledge, and to be raised into the spiritual man and its intelligence and wisdom, is also to be brought forth from hell. For man is born natural, but becomes spiritual through regeneration; and if he does not become spiritual, he is in hell; for the memory-knowledge of the natural man, that is, of a man not regenerated, is in the light of the world; but the intelligence of the spiritual man, that is, of the regenerate man, is in the light of heaven. And so long as a man is only in the light of the world, he is in hell; but when he is at the same time in the light of heaven, he is in heaven.

[2] Moreover, those who are solely in natural memory-knowledge, and consequently in no other light than the light of the world, cannot possibly believe the things which are of heaven; and even if they wish to enter into them by means of their own light, which is called natural light, they meet as it were a thick darkness, which blinds them and makes what is heavenly appear as nothing; for that which appears in the mind like thick darkness is tantamount to nothing. Hence it is that the merely natural man, no matter how much he believes himself to surpass others in light, at heart denies Divine and heavenly things; which also is the reason why so many of the learned reduce themselves by their knowledges to such insanity; for many of them deny the things that belong to the faith of the church and of heaven more than the simple do. It is otherwise with those who suffer themselves to be raised by the Lord into the light of heaven; for these are first raised above the memory-knowledges that belong to the natural man; and then from the light of heaven they see the things which are in their natural man and are called memory-knowledges, and well discriminate among them, adopting those they comprehend and which are congruent, and rejecting or laying aside those they do not comprehend and which are incongruent. In a word, the case herein is this.

[3] So long as a man is merely natural, so long his interiors, which see from the light of heaven, are closed; and the exteriors, which see from the light of the world, are open; and then the man looks downward, that is, into the world and to himself, for all the things that belong to his will and thought converge thither; and wherever the man looks, there his heart turns, that is, his will and his love. But when a man becomes spiritual, then his interiors, which see from the light of heaven, are opened, and then the man looks upward, which is effected by means of an uplifting by the Lord; thus he looks into heaven and to the Lord. Thither also are raised all things that belong to his will and his thought; thus his heart, that is, his love.

[4] For man has been so created that in respect to his internal he is formed according to the image of heaven, and in respect to his external according to the image of the world (n. 6057, 9279), to the end that heaven and the world may be conjoined in man, and that thus through man the Lord can inflow out of heaven into the world, and can direct the world; in particular with each one, and in general with all; and thus can conjoin the two, and thereby cause that in the world also there may be an image of heaven. But when a man cares solely for the world, heaven is closed with him; whereas when he suffers himself to be raised by the Lord, then heaven is opened with him, and the world is subjected to him. And when this is the case, hell is separated and removed from him; and then for the first time the man knows what good is and what evil is; but not before. This is what is called “the image of God” with man (Genesis 1:27-28).

[5] These things have been said that it may be known what the spiritual man is, and what the natural man, and that unless the merely natural man is made spiritual by the Lord, he is hell; consequently that it may be known why by “Egypt” is signified hell, seeing that by it is also signified the natural and its memory-knowledge. (That memory-knowledge is signified by “Egypt,” see the places cited in n. 9340; and that from this it signifies the natural, n. 9391; and also hell, n. 8866, 9197)

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.