Genesi 13:3
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Arcana Coelestia #1610
1610. I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth. That this signifies multiplication immeasurably, is evident without explication. It is here said that his seed should be made “as the dust of the earth;” in other places in the Word, “as the sand of the sea,” and in others, “as the stars of the heavens.” Each expression has its own peculiar signification. “The dust of the earth” refers to things that are celestial, for “the earth,” as before shown, signifies the celestial of love. “The sand of the sea” refers to things that are spiritual; for “the sea,” as has also been shown, signifies the spiritual of love. “As the stars of the heavens” signifies both of these, in a higher degree; and as none of these things can be numbered, it became a customary form of speaking to express by them immeasurable fructification and multiplication.
[2] That his seed (that is, the faith of love, or love) should be immeasurably multiplied, in the supreme sense, signifies the Lord, and in fact His Human Essence; for the Lord as to His Human Essence was called “the Seed of the woman” (see n. 256). And when the Lord’s Human Essence is signified, by immeasurable multiplication is meant the infinite celestial and spiritual; but when the faith of charity, or charity, in the human race, is signified by “seed,” it is meant that this seed in each one who lives in charity is immeasurably multiplied; as also comes to pass in the other life, with everyone who lives in charity. With such a one, charity and the derivative faith, and, together with these, happiness, are multiplied to such a degree, that it can only be described as immeasurable, and beyond words. When by “seed” there is signified the human race, the multiplication of this in the Lord’s Kingdom is also immeasurable, not only from those who are within the church and their children, but also from those who are without the church and their children. Hence the kingdom of the Lord, or heaven, is immeasurable. Concerning its immensity, of the Lord’s Divine mercy more will be said elsewhere.
